I have started a new project, which also hopes to follow up from my previous doctoral research into the emergence of lifestyle blogging.

One thing that struck me then, was how bloggers described having to adapt to unexpectedly large audiences, and then how they adapted again as they went through different stages in life – such as going to university, going overseas, or starting their first jobs.

Since then, many have gone on and I have seen their stories of their proposals, weddings, and the arrival of little bundles of joy. I’m curious to find out how they manage this (and any parent knows how much there is to do with children!), and what choices they make when they think about including their children in their online activity.

I’ll be doing online observation, using emergent coding and textual analysis, and interviewing bloggers who are parents.

And I’ll be posting more here as I progress.

For the academics out there, here is some of the literature that will be guiding me:

Abidin, C. 2013. Cyber-BFFs*: Assessing women’s ‘perceived interconnectedness’ in Singapore’s commercial lifestyle blog industry *Best Friends Forever. Global Media Journal: Australian Edition 7 (available on-line: http://www.hca.uws.edu.au/gmjau/?p=217, accessed 20 January 2014).

Marwick, A. E. 2015. Instafame: Luxury Selfies in the Attention Economy. Public Culture 27 (available on-line: http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2798379, accessed 23 July 2015).

Senft, T. M. 2012. Microcelebrity and the Branded Self. In Blackwell Companion to New Media Dynamics (eds) J. Hartley, J. Burgess & A. Bruns, n/a. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell (available on-line: http://terrisenft.net/writing/Blackwell%20microceleb/Senft_Blackwell_2012_Final_Microcelebrity%20and%20the%20Branded%20Self%20copy.pdf, accessed 23 July 2014).