Cox 5
Stephanie Cox
Jonathan Field
Public Sphere. Engl. 489
09 February 2010
Mommy blogger, Heath Spohrs, author of the online webpage The Spohrs are Multiplying.com has transformed the digital and somewhat exclusive family blogging phenomenon into a multi-facet industry receiving nation attention from news broadcasting programs such as CNN and MSNBC. Starting the blog as an outlet for expressing emotions during a difficult pregnancy, Heather Spohrs soon attracted more than a familiar audience. By using popular catch phrases such as Momarazzi and Jersey Spohr, Heather’s blog began to captivate larger audiences outside her close sphere of friends. Following the day-to-day tribulations of Heather and her recently newborn daughter Madeline Alice’s life, public audiences who chose to explore the family blogging community began to follow and comment on Heather’s photos and posts. The Spohrs family didn’t seem to mind the attention of the people who knew nothing of their family outside of the blog and continued with the blog to the point where it won two awards in the category of Mommy Blogs: The Best Overall award and The Best Baby Journal award. To an outsider of the world of mommy blogging, these awards are trivial, but they show the growing attraction of online blogging. As the public sphere transforms from face-to-face discourse to an online blogging community, one can only wonder what Jurgen Habermas, author of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere would comment when being meet with this new transformation in the 21st century. It is likely that Habermas would attribute the growing popularity of electronic conversation to be a branch of the letter writing event that occurred during the growth of the bourgeoisie family. Highlighting the family as the source of the growth of the public sphere, Habermas may disagree with the online blogging phenomenon deeming it unworthy and vague in terms of publicity and privatization of the family’s life, but events sparked in response to The Spohrs are Multiplying.Com may prove that Habermas’ theory regarding the erosion of the public sphere is inadequate in at least one sense.
Although controversies exist surrounding the creation of blogging communities, specifically family blogs, the Spohrs’ family blog gained attention in the positive rather than negative form. People were captivated with Heather’s stories regarding the pregnancy and birth of Madeline Alice and when Madeline Alice was born prematurely the blog gained even more recognition. The first post occurred in June of 2007 and only received three comments while the most recent post from February 9 of 2010 gained as many of 101 comments just hours after being submitted on the website. This may be due to the fact that the blog is completely open to the public as long as internet access is available. There are no limitations on by whom or during when the blog can be viewed. It is a completely public outlet into a private life. But this look into the private life has caused uproar in the public. Just months after being born, Madeline Alice was hospitalized and passed away due to complications with her respiratory system. Heather immediately blogged regarding her daughter’s death and as reported by CNN stated that blogging and tweeting were the only things that helped her through the difficult time. She discussed logging onto the blog during times of insomnia and asking for help while instantly receiving feedback from thousands of people who followed her blog on a daily basis. This massive form of communication and comfort helped Heather deal with a difficult tragedy through emotional support and also through financial support. Online followers donated over 10,000 dollars to the Spohrs family to cover Madeline’s funeral costs. In addition to emotionally and financially supporting the Spohrs, the faithful followers of the online blog donated over 30,000 dollars to the March of Dimes organization in Madeline’s honor. The Spohrs’ private family blog made a huge impact on a public organization and upon the world of the blogging community, so one wonders if the disintegrating public sphere that Habermas describes is truly an accurate allusion. Granted, face to face discourse is abolished, but is the world of cheap and powerful mass media really as negative as Habermas describes it to be? Is intellectual discourse excluded from the media and replaced by leisurely conversation? It seems that yes The Spohrs Are Multiplying.com is leisurely conversation, but what stems from that conversation is action so this mass media public sphere cannot be completely erroneous as Habermas asserts. Maybe, the downward spiral of the public sphere is occurring in terms of political and literary critical debate, but none the less, the public sphere is growing in others areas. An important function of The Spohrs Are Multiplying.Com seems to be the blogs ability to gain attention and foster action. Without the blog, the March of Dimes may have never received the additional 30,000 dollars in funding; therefore, the blog at least has some potential to be a worthwhile public sphere of information.
Although parts of Habermas’ model seem to be debatable when dealing with the online family blog, others pieces of information he presents in his Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere are irrefutable. Habermas’ theory of the diminishing public sphere is proved more through When discussing the family’s separation from the economy, Habermas claims the family now has more time to engage in affairs of the public authority. The family is no longer a private institution confined within itself, but now is force that branches out to different aspects of society. In the case of Heather Spohrs and her mommy blogging capabilities, this claim holds a great deal of truth. The Spohrs family’s private life consisting of Mike, Heather, deceased Madeline, and baby Annabel is posted all over the internet for any source to discover. The blog branches out to any individuals in any branch of society which is much like Habermas’ depiction of the family in the seventeenth century. The blog further illustrates Habermas’s indications regarding the growth of the family in the emotional sense. The role of the family as the leader in learning to express one’s own emotions was revamped to incorporate the public into the mix. Rather than the family teaching one how to act, people were being taught through the public sphere in a process of socialization. This assertion by Habermas is adequately portrayed in the Spohrs specific blog because it functions as a source of encouragement and can also be seen as an advisory board. Expecting mothers and mothers who already have children may now turn to The Spohrs are Multiplying.com and other mommy blogging sites as a source of guidance which is ultimately what Habermas frets and fears. The blogging community gives mothers an outlet for expressing their emotions in a discourse that is not actually reality; therefore, it can be harmful because it may prevent interaction among people in the household or the community.
Sites such as The Spohrs Are Multiplying are and always will be ambiguous. Debates will continue to surge regarding the influence of their positive and negative aspects on the diminishing public sphere, but one can safely say that the online blogging community is reaching new heights. Heather Spohrs probably never imagined her blog to have such a profound impact upon a community of followers, but because of her continued blogging, the March of Dimes was impacted in a major way. While Jurgen Habermas may argue that the public sphere is becoming more a leisure decisions rather than a literary critical debate, he can deny that some positive implications can come from the overall blogging community.