The Return of the Pesky Blog Sociologist

Jun 18, 2006 17:05

How do you go about making moral choices in your everyday life? Is this something you have written about in your blog?

If so, I would love to have a read as part of my PhD research in Sociology.

*posted with mod's permission



I've had some great responses from LJ users but I'm still needing a few more participants (about 15 to be precise).

If you haven't come across my invite before, let me introduce myself and tell you a little more about the research.

My name's Nick and I am a twenty-four year old postgraduate student in Sociology at the University of Tasmania. I am currently doing a PhD on peoples' everyday understandings and interpretations of morality using blogs as a way of gaining insight into this.

Over the last few months I have been trawling through Australian blogs - yes, I am officially a ‘blog voyeur’ - looking for posts that can help me understand the question of how people experience morality in the course of everyday life. In particular I have been looking for moments of moral decision making - you know, those moments in life when you stop and think about questions such as ‘should I or shouldn’t I do this?’ and ‘what course of action should I take here?’, and the answer isn’t easy to find. They don’t have to be life crises, just moments when you reflect on whether there’s a ‘right’ way, how do you find it and are you going to follow it anyway.

True to the metaphor of ‘trawling’, my catches have been mixed. Some of the blogs I have read are highly relevant, discussing concrete moral issues from ‘cheating’ in relationships or whether to give money to ‘beggars’, to having an abortion. Other relevant blogs have included more abstract discussions about the nature of the ‘good life’ and philosophical questions about the relationship between self and others. I have found some but need some more.

This is where YOU come in.

If you have addressed these sorts of issues in your own blog, and you live in a major Australian metropolitan area (Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide), I would love to hear from you. Your participation would involve you pointing me in the direction of your blog and, if possible, sending me some posts that you think might be relevant. It is also possible that I might ask if you are willing to take part in an online interview with me, but it would be entirely your choice to agree or decline.

If you‘re interested, please click here to visit my website or you can contact me directly (Email: hookwayn@utas.edu.au ; Telephone: (03) 6324 36 57) or my supervisor, Dr Daphne Habibis (Email: D.Habibis@utas.edu.au ; Telephone: (03) 6324 3236).

Just in case you wondered, this research project has been approved by the Northern Tasmania Social Sciences Human Research Ethics Committee. This means that your participation will be anonymous and confidential.

Thanks very much for your time.

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