The Personal Sphere of Expression:

Exploration of Iranian Weblogs and

Comments

-----------------------------------------

Motahare Akhoondi
IRIB University - Iran

Abstract:

In this paper I will discuss the comments as a feedback of weblog

readers to blogger of weblog. This article will answer the questions
below: what’s the function of Iranian comments? And which issues
are discussed in comment boxes? Do comment boxes function as an
intimate and personal sphere for self expression and presentation
or not?

All search engines can search all texts that are available for every
one, but there are many contents that search engine can’t find like
the topics and discussions which are in the comment boxes. The
same podcasts can’t be searchable anyway.

Comment boxes, are hidden in most of Persian weblog services.

As a result, comments of weblogs are the part that will be shown in
case you click on comment box. So here is one of the safest places
in blogging and exchanging the experience and some topics and
words that if used in blog posts, it would be filtered. Comments are
the most common feedback of viewers.

Key words: Comment, feed back, ritual communication

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Introduction:

The digital age arrives with a set of big communication challenges

for traditional mainstream media: new relations with audiences
(Interactivity), new languages (Multimedia) and a new grammar
(Hypertext). “José Luis Orihuela”
Weblogs as a personal media can be expanded like broadcasting
media. It also has the potential to gather personal community for
each blogger and putting comment in other weblogs is basic form to
make such personal community.

Weblogs are popular in part because they enable easy, inexpensive

self-publication of content for a potentially vast audience on the
World Wide Web, while being more flexible and interactive than
previous publication formats, print or digital. (Herring, Scheidt,
Bonus, & Wright, 2005)

Weblog was initially used to write daily content but gradually it

became specialized and subject-oriented. Here we take a look at
comments found in memoir weblogs. These are weblogs to which
people enter accounts of their daily experiments or personal
observations.

Because most subjects posted in these weblogs are ordinary

daily incidents they could be viewed as windows which show
social changes and happenings and show them in the way they are
perceived by ordinary people.
Also weblogs could be viewed as sources from which an oral history
of a specific culture could be compiled, weblogs which are written by
a blogger mirror the blogger’s perspective and so are self egotistic
weblogs. Unlike specialized religious, musical, political or cultural
weblogs these individual perspective weblogs mirror the bloggers
personality and through which it is possible to gain insight in to
bloggers concept of his/her daily life and his or her identity.

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Related Work:

There are many researches on weblog realm, but all of them focus
on posts, links and blogger. Comment study is a missing part. Gilad
Mishne and Natalie Glance have worked on comments and analyses
the comments for evaluating the post and weblogs.
And they argued comments are missing text in blogging and
they found out comments constitute a substantial part of the
blogosphere, accounting for up to 30% of the volume of weblog
posts themselves.
In Iran there is no working on comments. All of the existent studies
are about posts.

Literature review:
The basic models of communication participate of sender, message
and receiver.

The researchers just explain how the communicational systems

perform in media especially in Weblogs. But no research explain how
the audiences effect on blogger with just sending their feedback in
Comment shape or another types like : catch the blogger online in
Weblogs community, or keeping their online contact via chatting, or
sending mail and so on.
Feedback: Weiner (1948) is the first person who mentioned feed
back in communication studies.
He defines it as “the property of being able to adjust future conduct
by past performance.”(Brooks et all, 1976:147)
In other hand, Feedback is a kind of reflection of communicational
message that the receiver reflect to the message of sender
intentionally or not intentionally. These messages of audience

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let the sender to evaluate his communication situation with his
audience.
Healthy communicational system use feedback for correcting
communicational system. (Shokrkhah, 2000:80)
Comment: To pay attention to the reasons of the evidences and
evaluation of news or process that broadcast as this column name
or paper. (Shokrkhah, 2000:44)
Comment means interpretation, explanation but in blogging it
means the audience can put their idea on the specific box as their
feedback to posts. (Shamshirgar, 2007)

Some unique features of comment boxes are:

1) Not being searchable therefore can t be filtered?
2) It is the place that the feedbacks of the viewers can easily
be shown.
3) It makes it a private place for viewers.
4) Most of the important discussion between bloggers and viewers
can be made there.

The same thing in all types of Weblogs in each position is need of

being commented.

History of Persian blogging:

To understand how the Iranian blog sphere looks like, it is necessary

to review the blogging history and Iranian blog services. The first
Persian weblog was inaugurated in September, 2001 by Salman
Jariri.(Wikipedia)

A wave of blogging began by the time “a manual of generating

weblogs” was published in Iran by Hossein Darakhshan. Weblogs
appeared quickly and 100 were generated during the very first
year.

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During the first years the number of weblogs exceeded 10000
thanks to Persian Blog services.

Hossein Darakhshan , one of blogging harbingers in his Weblog titled:

“Sardabir-e-khodam” writes about politics, culture and himself in
English and Persian. (Wikipedia) history of Iranian blog services and
a study of comment box systems Free Persian language blogging
service provider named PersianBlog began it’s work in 2002.

Because most early Iranian bloggers held political views and biases
blogging became known as a political expression. After 2003 this
conception gradually changed by introduction of other types of
weblog including video-blogs and photo-blogs and podcast .to gain
an insight into Iranian blog services and their comment systems a
history of their activity is given below:

Persianblog : was the first Persian weblog service provider which

1

began its activity in June 2002 and was the biggest Persian weblog
service provider until 2007.

From then and as a result of competition with other providers,

Blogfa has acquired the first place .In 2007 Persianblog lost many of
its subscribers and his domain was hacked.
They have recently included a private commenting icon in their
services.

At the beginning the commenting service of Persian blog was

relatively secure because it included a coding image icon for
registering comments. It was then removed and so the possibility of
receiving spam has since increased.

1- http://persianblog.ir
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Blogsky 2: On April 9th 2003 while many doubts still persisted
regarding the first Iranian blogging service provider, the second
such provider was inaugurated. Its simple but engaging appearance
told of a fierce competitor. (shomaha,2009)
Better services and higher speeds have drawn many users to Blogsky
in a way that 6000 bloggers registered in a span of 20 days.
Blogsky was hacked in the same year and many users backed off. In
2004 and as a result of invasive filtering of some blogs registered at
Blogsky many users were disappointed with this provider.

Mihanblog : Mihanblog was the third Persian language weblog

3

service provider which was inaugurated in November 2004.

A special feature of this provider’s services was that commentators

could post their private comments on each post and also it was
possible to group weblogs. Weblogs provided by Mihanblog are
generally used by bloggers who post jokes, entertainment links and
music downloads links. Some mishaps including deletion of archives
and other glitches during 2005 and 2006 dispersed users.

The provided domain was bought by another group and after

undergoing drastic changes it again entered service providing
business. This time around with many additional services and trims,
including a personal message inbox possibility of posting to the
future ,9 commenting casts and password protected posts, each
blog is a users identifier and a user can also post comments to one
another and communication is thus made easier. Many interactions
between users which was included in box comments (such as
greetings and personal questions) were now included in personal
message system. Mihanblog currently holds second position among
Iranian weblog service providers and 500th position in the world.

2- http://blogsky.com
154 3-http://www.mihanblog.com
Parsiblog : Parsiblog was inaugurated in August 2004 and it
4

provides special features included advanced commenting system

and electronic signing of comments and a system for tracking
comments after they are posted and registration of commentators
I.Ps and possibility of posting answers to comments through
directors panel. Such facilities however were accompanied by bugs
and technical problems and so were not greatly popular.

Blogfa : it began in December 2004 and because at the time

5

blogfa was backed it flourished unhindered without facing serious

competition .In a span of 4 months 30000 active or semi active
blogs were registered by it.
Apart from incidents which befell these blogs the provider was not
seriously harassed and it now holds first position among weblog
service providers. One shortcoming is it’s commenting service
which is easily filled with spams. Each weblog could be targeted
with spam engines while being updated and the problem won’t be
mitigated even when an image coding icon in contrived. Increasing
the rank of the page in particular in Google is the aims of these spam
comments. (Azemati, 2005)

Wordpress is a foreign provider which has become popular with

Iranian bloggers. What distinct this provider from Iranian providers
is that the commentary page is not a separate web page and thus
could be googled or otherwise searched. Also if a blogger uses
strong language he or she could be barred by webmaster.
The in common parts in those mentioned blog services are: name,
E-Mail, page Address, message and the option for saving the
information in comment boxes. There is also a Smily box in near of all
them.

In the early years of weblogs most interactions in the virtual world

were through weblogs, commentary pages and more importantly
emails and chartrooms. In recent years however other tools such as

4 -http://parsiblog.ir
5 - http://blogfa.com 155
feed readers including Google reader, twitter and friend feed have
brought in many more ways of interaction and have revolutionalized
interactions in the virtual world. For example since feed reading
was introduced in Persian weblogs users could express what they
wanted to include in their comments through an alternative route
namely by adding notes on share items. Comments have become
smaller in this way and more people would be able to visit the post..
It is possible in twitter to express ones feeling in each instant using
140 characters and under the logo:

What are you doing?

Manyregularbloggersnowcommunicatewiththeiraudiencethrough
other ways. Participants in weblogs are usually called bloggers or
commentators while they are referred to as followers and friends in
twitter and friend feed respectively. They could offer feedbacks in
each instant and drive a bilateral discourse in such a direction that
it becomes a group interaction .Its in contrast to the conventional
commentary page which was seldom visited simultaneously by the
blogger and the commentator.

To avoid getting involved with these new and alternative tools of

interaction in the virtual world we shall only considered posts posted
during 2007 or earlier .when these alternative tools were not active
yet and weblogs have a distinct identity.

Sampling :
In the initial research we have launched an on-line questionnaire to
get a view of commenting habits of users. We asked those bloggers
who posted comments in other bloggers weblogs to also attend the
program .we were able to extract 304 answer sheets eventually.
In the second phase in order to put constraints on the sample we
only contacted memoir weblogs .Because accessing all Persian
memoir weblogs is not feasible we were driven to use a non-random
sampling.

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Our statistical population included Iranian memoir weblogs which
were inaugurated before 2007. We have studied comments of
three posts for each Weblog, these three being randomly selected
from comments on that weblogs.
30 weblogs were selected through Purposive samples on different
weblog service providers or from those who had personal domains.
Purposive samples comprised of subjects which are selected on
the basis of specific characteristics .Those subjects which don’t
meet the criteria are eliminated from the sample. (wimmer et
al,2005:126)
We allocated a quota of the sample to each weblog service provider
to incorporate them all in our study. Later we found out that most
bloggers who blog their memoirs subscribe to Blogfa.

Research results and Discussion:

The study showed that The Ages are between 13 and 60. 60%
are male and 40% are female. 26% are married and 73.5% are
single.47% have just one weblog and 21.5% have two, 16% have
three, and 6% have four, and from 5 and more it reduces in owning
the weblogs. 27% of bloggers update their weblogs once a week.
In most weblogs the forum is not used as a peripheral place of
communication (93%). 38% of bloggers post under pseudonyms.
29% of bloggers set their comment boxes in a way that they would
need the blogger’s confirmation before they are accessible .Another
66% don’t require a confirmation and 5% have barred commenting
in their weblogs.
Commenting habits: 13% use different names when posting
comments. 18% always post comments when surfing through
weblogs. 40% posted comment most of time and 33% only
occasionally considering the feedback, 11% always and 21.5%
usually and 28% occasionally. Considering feedbacks: One
interesting result is that people give feedbacks to other person’s
feedbacks given through comments and at times a feedback takes
priority over a post and becomes the target of next comments.

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23% of subjects read other peoples comments posted on other
bloggers weblogs. 36% usually do that. 32% sometimes do that.
7% seldom do that and 2% never do that. 4% stated that they
always answer comments posted on weblogs belonging to third
parties. 10% stated they usually do this and 34% stated that they
sometimes do this the statistics show that people not only read
comments posted but also study feedbacks given to other peoples
posts. This could affect the feedbacks given by themselves. Some
stated that they even answer comments posted on weblogs
belonging to third party bloggers.

Functions of comments :
With observing 30 memoir blogs, we found the comment function
below: getting feedback, communication in different levels with
different aims including an overture to friendship or a means to a
deeper friendship or strengthening an existing relationship, sharing
experiences, announcing one’s presence or asking permission to be
present, also ritual relationship or advertisement.
Comment boxes are suitable way to communicate and to send
feedbacks. E-mailing may not be easy for bloggers but comment
boxes have facilitated web communication on their own account.
Feed back:
A majority have said that they share experiences in comment
boxes.7% states they always do this.40% stated they usually do
this. 29% said they sometimes do this .16% said they seldom do this
and 6% said they never do this.
It became apparent that another function of comment boxes is to
increase the number of visitors to a weblog .To the question that
whether bloggers increase their visitors through this method a
majority gave a positive answer .5% stated that they always do that
21.5 stated that they usually do that and 28% said they sometimes
do that.
To the question that I inform others of my weblog being updated
through posting comments in comment boxes 22% stated that

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they always do that,35% said they sometimes do that .This shows
that bloggers use commenting to announce their weblog is being
updated and increase visitors feedback in this way .

Ritual communications :

Sometimes we communicate not to share information but just to

keep a communication going and to communicate for its own sake.
According to James Carrey ritual communication is on the same
level as sharing, participation, association, fellowship and adhering
to a common belief.
Ritualistic concept of communication doesn’t deal with distributing
a message in time or space but tries to keep the society in a given
moment. It doesn’t intend to share information but to represent
existence of a common belief. (Rothenbuhler, 1998) In comments
which convey greeting or valediction are seen galore. Sentences
like hello? How are you? at first of comments and bye and take
care at last of comments are so common. To the question that ‘I
am accustomed to greeting when posting comments’. 18% stated
that they always adhere to formalities.20% stated that usually do.
22% said they sometimes do. 21% said they seldom do and 16%
said they never do.
These results confirm preponderance of ritual communications in
comment boxes. Sometimes we don’t have any particulate opinion
to convey and so we just announce our presence with a simple
“hello” or by showing an icon. In such cases we are using ritual
communication.

Subjects being discussed in comment boxes :

Memoir weblogs are usually about daily events faced by the blogger
and the blogger is the main subject of them.
Comments in such weblogs are not of a divisive and agitating nature.
Comments could be divided into 4 categories on the basis of their

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contents. These are:
Individual –oriented comments, content –oriented comments,
advertisements and spam, and expression of personal interests.
Many comments however are individual –oriented and content-
oriented .These latter comments only express the commentator’s
opinion on the subject of discussion in the post.

In exclusively individual-oriented comments the subject of comment

is the individual and is unrelated to the content of the post. Because
the blogger him/her self is the subject in most posts in memoir
weblogs most comments are simultaneously individual –oriented
and content-oriented apart from that there are comments which
express personal interests of those who post them as well as their
opinions on the entirety of the weblog, including back ground music,
colors, frame, pictures, java codes, etc. Spams and advertisement
are unwilling comments which are posted to increase the visitor to
a website, also to advertise a website or selling online. (Like movie,
music & CD) These comments are usually among first comments of
a post because most these comments are forwarded to all updated
weblogs subscribed to a service provider through a smart engine.
Such commonly observable comments are mostly found in weblogs
provided by Blogfa.

Clash of ideas could be mostly seen in political weblogs in memoir

weblogs on the contrary sustained communication and mutual
support could be mostly observed. The reason could be the fact that
we are mostly unchallenged when talking about quotidian.

Are comment boxes a private venue for negotiation in

memoir weblogs?
comment boxes play a great part in sharing experiments and
sympathizing and ritual communication Because bloggers usually
divulge different angles of their lives in post the audience conceives
of those with whom the blogger deals in his/ her daily life and also

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his/ her habits and ideas in such a way as perceived by the blogger
him/her self. It is not rare that a blogger writes about most intimate
matters in his or her weblogs matters which he/she won`t dare
forward in an actual or official gathering it’s the anonymity of the
blogger which encourages him/ her to write without inhibition and
it has been seen that after a bloggers cover is busted then he/ she
stops blogging or posting altogether to the question whether you
think commenting webpage is a suitable place for exchanging ideas
1.8% totally confirmed this and 36% confirmed this as a general
but not as an absolute fact. 23% didn’t comment on that question
while 21% rejected this notion and 3% rejected it totally. Contrary
to these opinions is the following: 21% always delete comments
when they are too intimate. 20% sometimes delete and sometimes
keep to intimate comments, 21% seldom delete such comments
and 15% never delete them. The subjects were asked in another
question whether they delete an insulting comment 32% always
delete such comments. 20% usually delete them 16% sometimes
delete them, 18% seldom and the remaining 12% never deleted
such comments.

Bloggers usually react to both insults and intimate comments in

incorporate other peoples comments in their post. Only 21.5% and
4.5% stated that they seldom or never (respectively) incorporate
other peoples comments in their posts.
Comment function in a blog allows for the reader to become a part of
the blogger’s script.
As a consequence in memoir weblogs the discussion in comments
boxes are about blogger (person) or the subject of the post. and
because of that many of comments are personal.
Commenting, on the other hand, takes a bit of the privacy away
from the author and shares it with the audience, as was shown in
the case of Jill>s troll. (Nilsson: 2006:12) But there are some more
questiones: what is the definition of private message? Why do the
authors delete private message as insulting message?

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Comment and identity: 13% of bloggers are used to put their
comments with different names and 61% of bloggers write with
their nick name but 55% completely agreed that when they put
comment they are their real identity.
As results showed even near one forth of bloggers, they use to use
their nick name (which is not their real name: alias), but when they
put comments in other blogs, they do as characteristics of their real
identity. They hide themselves (the real self) behind the aliases.
On the question of whether one posts comments under his or her real
name and identity or uses pseudonyms 55% said they use their real
identity, another 36% lauded posting comments under real identity
and no one was found who totally rejected this.
10% said they use pseudonyms when they post comment, and 6%
totally agreed that they only used pseudonyms. 42% said their
weblog character is the same with their real character and 40%
reiterated this point. Only 7% rejected and 6% totally rejected this
idea.

Khalili has worked on Iranian weblogs. She found out that: 57% of
bloggers use the real name in writing weblog. This fact can prove
that most of the bloggers don’t like the virtual character. (Khalili,
2005:116)
Otherwise 43% of bloggers write with nick name, but when they put
comment they show their real identity.

Conclusion:
In this paper, we gave a categorization of comments and we have
discussed that comment is a common way to send feedback to the
blogger. And comment boxes are safe place for expression but so
private messages can be deleted by blogger. Maybe with these
private messages some of the extents of blogger can be shown and
it can take the privacy away from the blogger. In fact blogger prefer
deleting the comment.

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Acknowledgements: The author wish to thank Saeid Reza Ameli,
Mahdi Bakhshaei and Ali Reza Shirazi for many useful discussions
and for their assistance.

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