Let me start by stating that I am not writing in my native language. I am writing in my first language, though. I am Deaf. I should be signing to you rather than writing to you. I could be vlogging this, but I plan to introduce multiple avenues of exploration for you, and hyperlinking a vlog would be difficult (but not impossible). Another consideration is that I’m writing to someone from the majority language culture with little knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL, not to be confused with Age Sex Location as it’s popularly known within the context of internet communication). Also, my parenthetical habits would be too annoying in an oral context plus I’d like to allow you to have some time to peruse and ponder my information and ideas.
BLOGGING
So. I want to talk about blogging. It’s new. Well, it’s not new—it’s been around since the mid-90s. We’ve Got Blog: How Weblogs are Changing our Culture (2002) and Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg cover the history of blogging well. It first emerged as a means of sharing information, usually links of interest to friends and other followers of a particular webpage that a user maintained a link list. Blog–>web log (as log of links visited/for you to visit). Some of the early webloggers such as Dave Winer and Jorn Barger focused on link lists, accompanied by annotations and commentary. Early blogs were handcoded but with the advent of easier applications such as Blogger, evolution occurred. Really, the technology didn’t evolve so much as the *behavior* evolved. Blogs allowed for diverse avenues of personal expression, whether it is an introspective personal journal or a site devoted to covering a particular interest, “blurring the lines between weblogs and online diaries, a line that had never been visible to anyone except the most hardcore webloggers” (Rosenberg 115).
The main thing that makes blogging “blogging” is the creation of a site of community. Embedded in the tool (the blogging software) is the vital option of allowing comments and/or contributions to the discussion posted by the initial author. Without the ability for people to contribute and thereby participate, then the blog becomes little different from a homepage or a newspaper article or any other form of media which imposes the dichotomy of producer (of content) and consumer (of the content). The sense of community was seen by the developers of the early blogging applications, such as the Blogger staff, “Everyone understood that what they were building was not only a service for bloggers but a community as well” (Rosenberg 117). Clay Shirky, in Here Comes Everybody, highlights the community building inherent in blogging with comments, “Conversation creates more of a sense of community than sharing does” (50).
Community. That’s the word that crops up in everything I’ve read for this project. Teh interwub be so big and fulla peoples and connects ’em all. Shirky, in his aforementioned book, and James Surowiecki, in The Wisdom of Crowds, devote much discussion to the creation and harnessing of this giant electronic collective. Henry Jenkins, in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, also draws upon this theoretical direction in his analysis of what people can do with new media. I’ll return to them all later on, but first I want to talk about what community means to me.
When I see the word ‘community’ I immediately think of the largest and primary community I identify as belonging to—the Deaf community. Growing up as a deaf person in a predominantly Hearing environment, I’ve always felt like an outsider. Even when I had deaf classmates to communicate with, I still felt like we all were outsiders. Two or three other deaf students in my grade didn’t really make much of a community. There were maybe 12 deaf students in total at my school. However, as I got older and went away to deaf camps, I learned that there were more deaf people than I thought. When I graduated high school, I decided to go to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf because quite simply, I was tired of hearing people. In my interactions with deaf and Deaf people at camp and in college, I learned more about Deaf Culture and the Deaf community. Finally, a place where I fit in, a better fit than in Hearing society.
DEAF BLOGGING
I lied when I said I wanted to talk about blogging. I really want to talk about Deaf blogging. Few people are talking about it. It’s ignored or overlooked by the mainstream internet culture academics and analysts and ethnographers and so on. I mean, the only reference to deaf people came up in Convergence Culture where Jenkins mentions it in context of the TV show Survivor being spoiled with the list of contestants for a then upcoming season being leaked by a mysterious poster to a forum. That’s it?
I don’t feel too bad though, because when blogging is studied, the focus is usually on those who are on the cutting edge of technology (then and now), and that, in Jenkins’s own words, are “disproportionately white, male, middle class, and college educated. These are the people who have the greatest access to new media technologies” (23). Sure, there are women in the mix too, like Rebecca Blood and Meg Hourihan.
In talking with Dr. Guertin about this research project, she told me to (and I’m paraphrasing), “look at what makes Deaf Blogging different from the usual blogging.” That means I had to look beyond the basic difference of a Deaf person blogging and a hearing person blogging, or even a Deaf person vlogging. I was too hung up on the tools that Deaf bloggers used, not looking beyond that to the deeper insights that one could gain from the study of this topic. Jenkins also educated me on this fact when he clarified the confusion between old media and new media. “[O]ld media never die—and they don’t even necessarily fade away. What dies are simply the tools we use to access media content [...] delivery technologies” (13). I was focused on applications like LiveJournal and MySpace and YouTube as part of Deaf blogging, but those were just tools, not the content.
Dr. Guertin’s dictum also comes to mind when I recall the latest scholarship done in Deaf Studies. Frank Bechter, in Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking, suggests that “there is something better about deaf culture, or particularly worthwhile about its study, in some sense in which deaf people, by virtue of their culture (not by virtue of their deafness), are fundamentally more enlightened than their hearing peers” (67). H-Dirksen L. Bauman, the editor and a contributor, writes that Deaf Studies should “ask what it is about Deaf Culture that is valuable to human diversity” (3).
So what is different about Deaf blogging? The first answer would be in that its purest form, (vlogging), Deaf bloggers use a different language. They use ASL, BSL, LSF, and a host of other natural signed languages and artificial sign systems (although I will focus on the American Deaf). This is different from any other blogging done on the internet by virtue of being a visual language (or system) rather than a written or spoken one. First came writing. Deaf and hearing bloggers alike could blog, only Deaf bloggers couldn’t use their native languages (which is their signed language). Then came streaming voice posts. Not exactly conducive to most Deaf bloggers. Then came easy-to-post-video tools. (Remember, tool, not content). Now Deaf bloggers could bring their native language to bear on their blogs. The content is enriched.
–ASL
The first thing that one has to understand about American Sign Language is that it is not English. It is not representative of English. It is not based on, nor is it patterned after, English. ASL is a unique, living language that has its own grammar and vocabulary. Quite distinct from spoken languages, ASL requires virtually the entire upper torso to fluently communicate: hands, arms, shoulders, chest, neck, face, head, eyebrows, eyes and mouth. The hands are just one part of the whole communicative mechanism, much like the tongue is just one part of the communicative mechanism with which one uses to produce intelligible utterances.
Now, if you force a hearing person to type a blog entry in English, this blogger will have little trouble composing in her or his native tongue. Written (or rather, typed) English is the graphemic representation of spoken English. This blogger will be able to transform thoughts into speech then use the conventions of written English to set the spoken words into letters on the computer monitor. Hearing readers familiar with written English will be able to translate the letters back into the sounds they originally were to produce a mental spoken dialogue. Punctuation marks guide the reader to place rising intonations on questions and pauses throughout the written entry. Text can easily be stylized to further represent how the hearing blogger intends for the text to sound, such like ALL CAPS BECUZ I SAID SO! or a breathless run-on sentence where thebloggersayseverythingallatonce.
In contrast, ASL has no conventions for writing. The closest thing available for setting ASL down to paper is glosses, which are more in the academic (usually a linguist’s) domain. Glosses have the effect of seeming like broken English, THAT NOT WHAT DEAF REAL TALK SAME neg. It also contributes to the misconception of ASL as being derived from English. Worse than that, not being able to write in ASL deprives the Deaf blogger of all the nuances of the language—all of which require the hands, arms, shoulders, chest, neck… etc. to be able to express one’s self fully. Written English has sound embedded in it, while the translation of ASL to English strips ASL of all its linguistic currency.
But now, vlogging! Easy to create and post video messages now can be used to present ASL. Persons fluent in ASL are now able to produce and view content in their native language without the intermediary of English text. It’s ironic that the most recent developments in blogging tools allows for the use of the earliest human mode of communication. The consensus is that gesturing most likely was the first means of language communication between early man, with the development of spoken languages later on and then ultimately, written languages. Aaron Barlow discusses Walter Ong’s views on literacy and orality in regards to electronic communication in Blogging America: The New Public Sphere. “Ong sees a shift from a sound ‘space’ to a visual one—and what we are experiencing now is a further shift, to a virtual space” (19). The web borrows from “primary orality, secondary orality, and print culture, building on all three to create something that, while familiar in many of its aspects, is also proving to be startlingly new and different in just the sort of ways print culture did” (25). Who better to contribute to the evolution of the new web literacy than a people who have always been visual and have never abandoned orality? And as Bechter would say, who better to ask for insight to this new form of literacy?
Deaf people, when communicating in ASL, are always in motion. Hands fly, eyebrows rise and lower, mouths purse and open, bodies turn right and left. There is no way static text on a page or screen could hope to reproduce the dynamic flow of an ASL conversation or presentation.
Deaf Studies scholars have conflated the study of ASL literature with cinematic techniques. According to Bauman, the language of film, “three basic cinematic properties […] play a role in ASL poetics—camera, shot, and editing” (Signing the Body Poetic: Essays on American Sign Language Poetry 110). Someone who is viewing an ASL speaker has to create a mental movie, following the imagery suggested (or demanded) by the signed discourse. One signer is able to switch between multiple characters and differentiate between them visually and spatially, and show limitless motion and action even when bounded within the sign space (frame). Dynamic webpages with moving text and/or video just may be able to approach the capabilities of a fluent ASL speaker. Ironically, Bauman writes, “who knows what future poetic and cinematic forms could emerge as Deaf poets try to re-create the special effects of a movie like The Matrix.”
As already outlined, ASL literature is regarded as an oral literature. With the label of ‘oral literature’ comes the importance of transmission of culture. Important themes and historical events and communal memories cannot be written down in tomes for future deaf people to pick up and learn from. These ideas must be told face-to-face to neophyte audiences so that they can learn what it means to think and live as a Deaf person. The personal and oral transmission of cultural values and mores gains immediacy—even urgency—to the teller and listener. At least, that was the case before new technologies arose, such as the video camera, digital recorder, and blogs. Now Deaf people could talk f2f after a fashion, signing their thoughts and feelings for others to see—no matter what the distances may be. This is not a change in Deaf Culture, but a continuation; hearing people, on the other hand, are experiencing cultural changes with the introduction of blogs.
–Deaf Perspective
Deaf Culture also has a leg up on American bloggers because Deaf people live within a culture that is communal and collectivist. “One of the strongest features of Deaf culture is an emphasis on social relationships with other deaf persons who share similar experiences,” (Deaf People: Evolving Perspectives from Psychology, Education and Sociology 26). Much like other minorities, Deaf people band together to share information, pool resources, and preserve their language and culture. With other deaf people from outside Deaf Culture, “they work together to fight for parity in civil rights, access to optimal educational environments for deaf children, upward mobility in employment” (203).
The common view of Deaf people is that they are disabled and in need of assistance seeing as they live isolated from the rest of society. However, for most Deaf people, this isolation is created by the majority who refuse to accommodate (use ASL) the Deaf. This creates a situation where Deaf people have come to rely on other Deaf people, not on hearing people; a prime example of a communal culture. Furthermore, since Deaf people communicate most easily with one another through their native language, it stands to reason that Deaf people will share information that will help one another. Withholding information from others only serves to hurt the community. In this sense, the Deaf community is a collective.
Remember the people who talked about how the internet leads to the formation of a collective? James Surowiecki devoted an entire book to the discussion of collective intelligence, the Wisdom of Crowds. Howard Rheingold (Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution), Clay Shirky and Henry Jenkins also draw on the notion of this group intelligence. Jenkins encapsulates the idea thus: “None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills” (4). This is exactly what the Deaf community does, and to a larger degree, this is what the Deaf community can offer to the larger internet community.
Surowiecki lists the three elements necessary for successful harnessing of collective intelligence, and the first one is diversity. “Diversity helps because it adds perspectives that would otherwise be absent and because it takes away, or at least weakens, some of the destructive characteristics of group decision making” (29). Adding perspective is what Bechter, Bauman, and well, everyone else in Deaf Studies wants to do. “Adding in a few people” to a group, with “different skills, actually improves the group’s performance” (30).
You know what? Let’s return to the deaf Survivor contestant, Christy Smith. Jenkins presented a case study of collective intelligence at work through the Survivor spoiler community. Essentially, this group’s goal is to discover the locations, cast list, and elimination sequence to Survivor before the episodes air (since the entire contest is filmed before airing begins). One tidbit the mysterious poster revealed was the fact that one of the contestants is deaf. “The deaf girl is 22. I don’t know her name” ChillOne posted (40). Now, I have no idea if there were any deaf members of that particular Survivor spoiling forum, but for this example, I will assume there were no participating Deaf forum members, so the spoiling community lacked a Deaf perspective.
Here’s what they could have gained. This Deaf person would have assumed that a 22 year old woman was probably a recent graduate of a college, so the first place to look would have been at the three major colleges that serve large deaf populations, NTID, Gallaudet, and California State University at Northridge. This Deaf member probably knew someone who attended these places, or perhaps knew someone who knew someone. The Deaf world is a small world, and Shirky explains this as being due to “something called ‘homophily,’ or the grouping of like to like,” which increases the chances that a deaf person will know another deaf person through one or multiple degrees of separation (213). So this Deaf spoiler could put out feelers to find out if any seniors or recent graduates had tried out for Survivor. I’m reasonably certain that this hypothetical Deaf spoiler would have found out more information about this contestant to post to Survivor Sucks, because as it turns out, Christy Smith did in fact graduate from Gallaudet University.
One other group that benefited from a Deaf perspective is the game modding project for DOOM3. Although the project to add subtitles to make DOOM3 playable for Deaf people was proposed by a hearing person (Matt Sefton) in 2004, one of the first teammembers to join was Reid Kimball, a deaf game developer and player. A dozen other joined the effort, and in 2006, the DOOM3[CC] project released modifications that transformed sound information into visual information, going beyond simple subtitles to the inclusion of a visual radar, which told the player how close or far away a sound was. And not only was the game subtitled for the Deaf, it was subtitled for German, French, Portugese, and Spanish-speakers. So the Deaf perspective led to improvements for OTHER language users.
Recently a new meme has spread through the internet—the repurposing of a bunker scene from the German-language film Downfall into a comedic skit in which Hitler finds out disappointing news and rages about it. My first exposure to it was this. Shortly later, I saw the Deaf perspective added.
I’m inclined to believe the poster’s assertion that he is deaf because of the cultural information shared in the video shows an insight into the technological life of a deaf person. The Deaf perspective shown in this video is one that is often overlooked by many hearing people. Most people are aware of the genocidal crimes Hitler and his Nazi government committed against the Jewish peoples of Europe, but less people are aware of the inclusion of disabled people and other undesirables such as homosexuals in the Nazi roundups and imprisonment. For many culturally aware Deaf people, Hitler is an eugenic criminal who had many deaf people enslaved in camps, forcibly sterilized, and in other cases, executed, in the pursuit of the ideal ‘normal’ human.
The Deaf perspective here is very typical of the trickster in Deaf storytelling. Things taken for granted, such as the permanence of hearing, are turned onto its head, forcing the audience to reconsider notions of who is normal and who is not. Carol Padden and Tom Humphries write about how Deaf life views things from a “different center. Deaf people work around different assumptions about deafness and hearing from those of hearing people” (Deaf In America 54). For example, a Deaf person who signs but also can talk in spite of a serious hearing impairment may be called ‘a little hard of hearing’ by a Deaf person, and “very hard of hearing” by a hearing person, both of which are accurate when gauged according to their respective point of views.
Now the latest “Hitler Finds Out…” meme has been recontextualized from a Deaf perspective and sent out to be traded amongst Deaf, deaf, and hearing bloggers. As the video is linked by one blog and another and another, a small grain of the Deaf perspective touches each person that watches it.
–Blogging Record
What else can the Deaf perspective provide through Deaf blogs? A linguistic record of change and evolution. Most of the world’s minority languages are locked in a struggle for survival and preservation. This is even truer of oral languages of various native populations across the world, from North America to Wales to the Pacific Rim. UNESCO claims that over three thousand languages are endangered, and seeks to help preserve and learn more about these languages. Deaf bloggers who post vlogs also post digital records of ASL as spoken across different regions of the United States, to say nothing of other nations and their signed languages.
Shortly after the invention of movie cameras, the National Association of the Deaf commissioned films to be made of signing exemplars such as poetry and lectures, so that “for the first time, ideas could be transported to places around the country in the original language of Deaf people” (Inside Deaf Culture 59). The NAD films were a “treasure trove” to linguists studying how ASL had evolved from the 19th Century to modern times. In spite of the exorbitant cost of making film reels, NAD felt strongly about the need to ‘publish’ ASL literature, even if they were not aware of the existence of ASL literature. The advent of videocassette cameras was also seen as a means of capturing and disseminating ASL literature. Sign Language instruction manuals could be packaged with VHS tapes and later, with DVD discs. And now, the internet has lowered the cost of publishing and disseminating ASL literature from thousands of dollars to barely nothing in comparison. Now these exhibits of ASL discourse are preserved, slices in linguistic history available for modern and future researchers to examine the evolution of a living oral language, and a visual one at that.
Peter Cook, a renowned ASL poet and performer, notes the potential impact of vlogs of Deaf people signing, saying that these vlogs provide an unvarnished look at ASL as used by ordinary Deaf people (pers. interview 22 Nov. 2008). One can imagine the elder statesmen of NAD rehearsing their lectures and jokes before committing it to film, which would be expensive to develop and print. VHS and DVDs of ASL performances also carry rehearsed performances because oftentimes these materials are intended for sale for educational and entertainment purposes. Spur of the moment vlogs don’t carry the same rehearsed quality of such ASL presentations, primarily because they are not always formal literature but conversational discourse. A Deaf girl who wants to tell a funny joke will practice to make sure she doesn’t fumble the punch line (or more accurately, the punch concept), before recording her vlog. However, a Deaf man, upset at the rising cost of hearing aid batteries may sit in front of the computer and rant and ramble, tripping over his words and restating his points several times as he gathers his thoughts. The Deaf man’s vlog would be a “treasure trove” to linguists as an insight to the thought processes that goes into the articulation of visual languages.
This is not a solely Deaf issue; this is an issue that faces many ethnic minorities around the world. Donald R. Browne says, “Indigenous electronic media often are seen as vital instruments in the salvation or resurrection of dying or dead languages, and indeed they can have a major impact along these lines. Along with primary and secondary schools (and, less often, tertiary institutions) offering instruction through and in the languages, several hours of daily broadcasts and the availability of Web sites in them does bring about a growth in interest” (157). On a deeper basis, the dissemination of ASL exemplars for the public to view and respond to can have the effect of reducing Hearing society’s disabling attitudes of the Deaf. Christopher B. Krentz says, “Video has played a subtle but crucial role in spreading knowledge of ASL.” Of the effects, Krentz notes “it can make society more understanding, unbiased, and ‘Deaf-friendly,’ creating more opportunities for Deaf individuals” (Signing the Body Poetic 66-67).
–Resistance
On the flip side, Deaf blogging has the ability to resist. Resistance has been part of Deaf culture for as long as Hearing culture has tried to enforce their ideas of normalcy onto Deaf individuals. Harlan Lane writes, “the deaf community resists the antihistorical, individuating denial of its existence. That is why […] they recounted their struggle and their times in eloquent ASL [on film and] why deaf organizations never tire of decrying the infamous Congress of Milan where, in 1880, hearing educators of deaf children resolved to banish manual language from their schools worldwide” (Mask of Benevolence 84). Deaf blogging is another way of documenting the Deaf life, the Deaf identity, and the existence of Deaf community through the linkage of blogs and vlogs.
Nelly Kambouri and Pavlos Hatzopoulos critique the so-called promise of blogging as a means of bringing the private to the public eye, the release of the marginalized voice to the public sphere. They say that once the private emerges into the public, it replaces the public as the homogenous ‘Other’ perspective. In essence the private becomes another public, being different is not different anymore. Kambouri and Hatzopoulos say that bloggers have come to resemble one another, so their private writings are indistinguishable from others’ private writings. This then leads to their assertion that the private just becomes another public.
However, Deaf bloggers, deaf vloggers to be exact, can resist this very “banality.” Out of the thousands, perhaps even millions, of blogs published in America, how many are written or spoken in a different language? A minority, would be the reasonable answer. How many are signed? Considering that a rough estimate of the deaf and hard-of-hearing population of the United States is approximately 20 million, and a fraction of that are users of a signed system or ASL, a very small percentage of vlogs would be in sign language.
Still, this small minority is enough to resist being made into a banal public. Deaf bloggers who choose to type their entries in English lose any distinction from the myriad other English-text blogs. Signed blogs preserve their own identity, a Deaf identity. Furthermore, the lack of translation ensures that ASL preserves its own linguistic and cultural currency. The full meaning(s) and nuances of the Deaf blogger’s post is preserved for all readers/viewers to consume and analyze and respond. Finally, the Deaf vlog forces outsiders to step into the private sphere of the Deaf world, or remain standing outside. Like the trickster mentioned earlier, the Deaf vlogger reverses the position of the Deaf and hearing person. The Deaf person is the privileged person with specialized knowledge while the hearing person is inferior and unable to access the Deaf person’s world. For those happy few who make the effort of learning ASL, they are then un-disabled and able to participate in the Deaf blogosphere.
SNAPSHOT OF DEAF BLOGGING
Finally, I wish to close with a look at the recent state of Deaf Blogs. One easy aggregate of Deaf-related blogs/bloggers is DeafRead.com. In the last 30 days, there have been approximately 500 blogs listed. About 90 vlogs have been produced, while the rest are all in English text. A small percentage of the vlogs also have subtitles or some accompanying English text, either as a topic identifier, or as a transcription of the signed blog.
A portion of the vlogs are ASL performances, while others are signed blogs. Most of the English text blogs cover various issues from job searches, discrimination, news posting/reposting, movies, closed-captioning, and so on. One important thing to note is DeafRead allows blogrolling from all perspectives regarding the Deaf community—from those who view deafness from a pathological perspective, to those who view being deaf as a cultural identity. Though this multiple perspective platform somewhat obscures the presence of Deaf blogging, it fits within the spirit of collective intelligence by allowing for diversity in perspectives.
Arguments are sure to start, and some have occurred, such as the recent debate over the recently coined term by one frequent contributor “deafless.” One might consider the potential for argument as equating the potential for divisiveness, but ideally arguments allow for the articulation of differing viewpoints and the locating of like-minded individuals, which is part of collective problem-solving and community-building, respectively.
Returning to the larger question—what does Deaf blogging do (or provide) that is not found within the greater population of blogs? Deaf blogging offers access to a linguistic diversity that is difficult to find in this modern world. The written and spoken language has greater power than the visual language. However, there are things that the written and spoken word are incapable of, but the visual language is adept at doing. Somewhere along the way in history, most hearing people have lost the ability to do the things that Deaf people can do.
Moreover, Deaf blogging provides a fresh perspective that comes from being an overlooked minority that lives and communicates visually. This fresh perspective can be used to add to the diversity of various communities of spoken language English users. I have not even addressed gender and ethnic issues that exist within the deaf population of the United States, but some consideration will reveal many overlaps with hearing populations that live under similar minority statuses. Ultimately, the perspective that a Deaf participant brings to the community, more often than not, doesn’t make one question, “what does it mean to be Deaf?” but asks, “what does it mean to be hearing?” Placed within the community of deaf people, Deaf and deaf people are asked, “what does it mean to be me?” That question is a question that everybody asks themselves at one time or another.
The inclusion of a new voice to the community may help clarify that question for everyone, even if that voice may be voiceless.