Is mummy blogs’ liberating power being subverted?
As bloggers are pushed in front of the public and advertisers more than ever University of Notre Dame Australia’s Camilla Nelson asks if commercialisation is weakening their impact in a piece which first appeared on The Conversation.
Making the personal political has long been a feminist project. But parenting blogs — known popularly, but often with a special sort of sexist sneer as “mummy blogs” — increasingly run the risk of making the personal commercial.
In America, popular blogs average 100,000 hits or more a day. Some bloggers reportedly make as much as US$1 million a year from sponsored posts and advertising.
Nelson
Great article.
I think readers will ultimately have a greater respect for those blogs that have clear and transparent disclosure statements.
Just look what happened to the gaming bloggers when it got revealed they were on the take from Microsoft and EA.
Don’t disclose and its over. Do disclose and you”l be treated with some caution but trust won’t be completely broken. Or don’t have anybody cashing you up to change your message but then you need a day job too.
Great article. I’m an Australian blogger with a ‘personal, parenting focus’ (otherwise known as a ‘Mummy Blogger’ but I despise the term for what it has come to represent). In my experience, it’s definitely the posts you write about your vulnerabilities, dysfunction and lessons learned from life’s mistakes that are deemed your most popular, not the review of a new product or something with the undertones of making a sale. If we remember why we decided to begin blogging in the first place (which is usually as a release or simply to share elements of one’s life with a like-minded audience) then hopefully the integrity of the blog can be maintained. If there’s money to be made, then the audience must be made aware of this via full disclosure to keep that integrity. Having said that, it generally becomes obvious quite quickly if a blogger has crossed from creative intent to financial gain in the blogging world – online audiences are pretty savvy.
In a past life I was on the corporate side of things, getting the “mummy bloggers” to endorse the massive company I was working with. I never saw it turn sour. Some had fun with it, others used it as part of their portfolio of writing to move on to bigger and better things, but always it was open and upfront on who was being paid for what (mostly in products or online credits). Hell, it was fun even. This shouldn’t be difficult.
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