Blogging while angry

The sustainability of emotional labor in the Asian American blogosphere

Bibliographic Data

ID11267313
AuthorsLori Kido Lopez (0000-0001-6805-8864, University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume36
Issue4
Pages421-436
Publication date2014-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0163443714523808
OpenAlexW2128334195
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited14

The Asian American blogosphere has developed to encompass a variety of voices regularly providing readers with news items, opinions, and personal narratives of life in Asian America. In this article I investigate the relationship between emotion and activism in order to better understand the potential for using blogs as part of a sustainable social movement, as well as to theorize the kind of labor that activism can entail. This study is based on interviews with 15 bloggers who have created or written for blogs that focus specifically on Asian American issues. Through an analysis of the bloggers’ interviews and their blogging archive, I argue that emotion can play a foundational role in generating activist interventions and building the necessary community required for contributing to social change, but can also have a deleterious impact on the individuals involved. It is only through recognizing the ambivalent role of emotion within the affective labor of activism online that we can work toward more sustainable participation and impact

Ambivalence · Blogosphere · Narrative · Political science · Psychological intervention · Public relations · Social media · Sociology · Sustainability · The Internet · Variety (cybernetics · World Wide Web · Critical Race Theory in Education · Emotional Labor in Professions · Gender Studies · Labor Movements and Unions · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub