This type of fingertip access to information has many benefits in modern day culture, but how do those benefits affect the overall culture within modern Paganism, or does it at all? Different groups of people may have different opinions on the benefits and problems created with Pagan blogging and the instant access to this version of the Pagan world.
[photo credit: pixabay.com]The social sciences often point out how pieces of any social system affect and rely on one another. As the overarching community approach creates a social structure that encompasses many different moving pieces, the increase in blogging as a common form of communication and information exchange has the potential for long standing cultural changes. The ecological theory explores the interdependent relationship between different elements of any community, grouping, or construct, making the idea that the rise of a blogging culture in modern Paganism has changed the landscape of our cultural connection.
What does this mean and what does that look like in community culture? Who are our leaders, experts, and resources in the community, and how does this change the landscape of how we access popularity? How are leaders and experts chosen, and how does the blogging culture influence who gets attention?
The following are some thoughts from a variety of Pagans on this concept of whether blogging culture has an impact on Pagan culture, and our community.
Jason Mankey
"I think the short answer is that sometimes it does. Recent discussions about race, gender, transphobia, and creating safe spaces at festivals and conventions have transcended their origins online. I think these are all issues we are currently confronting within our circles, covens, and groves. I think we are still far away from the lasting and permanent change many of us wish to see, but the dialogue is encouraging and moving in the right direction."
"The issues of theology that often dominate the internet discourse rarely to never come up in the terrestrial groups I'm a part of. However, I think some of those conversations represent the inevitable schisms that will one day divide the Pagan umbrella. As a result it's possible that we will feel their influence in the future, though I think that future is still far on the horizon."
"One of the problems with the Pagan blogosphere is that it represents only a small slice of Pagandom. Those who follow most of the "trending topics" that arise within it are a fraction of a fraction. It's an engaged fraction to be sure, but it takes awhile for ideas to work their way through a community as large and diverse as modern Paganism. In that way the influence of blogs is a bit more subtle and hard to see, but those of us who engage in it on a day to day basis can see its influence". - Jason Mankey, blogger at "Raise the Horns," Patheos Pagan Channel
David Salisbury
"I think that some blogs are influential and that others identify what is influential on the community. Pagan blogs tend to follow trends of topics, even across various sites, and I find that interesting. Identifying trends (and what isn't trending) feels like a helpful gauge for what our community thinks is important and what isn't. Sometimes those realizations are exciting and sometimes they're very disappointing". - David Salisbury, author Teen Spirit Wicca
Erick DuPree
"Blogging connects people from all over the world and provides a platform to humanity's deep need to be heard. For Pagans, I see that blogging provides the opportunity for people to come together holding widely varied belief and create community and build identity, while using technology as the 'magic.' There is an equal playing field in blogging, at least in the beginning, that like the core of our diverse spirit has the power to build bridges and spread Pagan values and ideals."
"Personally, blogging changed my life, by allowing in me the freedom to seek wisdom and explore it interactively with people from all walks of life. My 'covenstead' has in many ways become the blogosphere where the dialogue is rich, meaningful, sometimes contrary, but always an invitation to more. More magic. More Wisdom. More love." - Erick DuPree, blogger at "Alone in Her Presence"
Clio Ajana
"Blogging is an act of justice that gives voice to those who are not often heard. In Peggy McIntosh's "White People Facing Race: Uncovering the Myths That Keep Racism in Place", a few of the myths that blogging destroys are the myth of white racelessness and the myth of monoculture. Blogging by Pagans of Color eradicates the stereotype that those who worship the Gods are, of necessity, uniform by nature and white by class, race or upbringing. Blogging makes it possible to see the corners,what is hidden from the rest of the world. Each myth destroyed, each level of resistance challenged and each open discussion about privilege in Paganism brings the overall community closer together. We are able to reveal what we know about ourselves to those who might not see beyond the once or twice a year encounters with those who embrace some level of paganism as a person of color. Blogs are a necessary counterbalance to the blandness that stereotypes the definition of "Pagan" in 2015." - Clio Ajana, blogger "Daughters of Eve," Patheos Pagan Channel
Cara Schulz
"I think it does for a very small minority. If there are a million Pagans just in the USA, give or take, and even a really well read blog only has a few hundred or even thousands of readers, that is a very small percentage."
"But if we're talking about the Pagan community, that's a bit different. The Pagan community is both a small world and a very segmented "community." Large segments exist almost as islands, rarely if ever interacting with the wider community. Plus, most Pagans are still solitaries and while some are connected to the wider community, most aren't".- Cara Shulz, staff writer, "The Wild Hunt"
"Tim Titus"
"Blogging tends to have an influence beyond its readers. While even the most read blogs attract only a small percentage of the total pagan community, those it does attract tend to be engaged in the community. As a result, their reactions set a course for discussion. That discussion has the ability to steer the movement. The influence is indirect, but it is real." - Tim Titus, blogger at "Intersections"
Niki Whiting
"I consider blogging a method of discussion. Blogging can often respond to, create, or steer the discussions that various groups are having, or provoke ones that we need to have. Is it the only means of influence? Of course not, but as social media becomes more and more a part of the way our communities interact, I think blogs can distill topics, teach wisdom, amplify certain voices or issues, that are present in the community at large". - Niki Whiting, blogger at "The Witch's Ashram," Patheos Pagan Channel
Aaminah Zulu Shakur
"Blogging has made it possible for solo practitioners and others who feel isolated to find community with people all over the world. For those of us from marginalized backgrounds, it has helped us to find and connect with other marginalized people and to increase our understanding of our practices and incorporate new ones. One of the really exciting things that I think blogging has done to influence Modern Pagan culture is to provide opportunity for marginalized communities to speak about what it means to be marginalized both in the broader Pagan community and the world at large."
"Blogging is where useful discussion of racism, homophobia, transantagonism, and cultural appropriation is able to happen in ways that allow us to see the human face of these issues. Cultural appropriation is one thing that blogging, and the internet in general, have brought to a wider discussion. To a degree, the internet has made it easier to culturally appropriate, as practitioners can google and find so many things that they wish to cobble together into a practice without thinking about the origins or privileges they may have that make it easier/safer for them to use them. On the other hand, blogging is where we are able to talk about those origins, what it feels like to watch someone make money off of something that may still be illegal or at least discouraged for us to retain of our own culture, what it means on a personal level, and what it means on a larger cultural level. Blogging creates accessible avenues for education, and for personal engagement and relationship building." - Aaminah Zulu Shakur, artist and healer
Anomalous Thracian
"The internet is a fascinating thing. On the one hand, it is a tool that has created space for platforms - such as blogging - which allow for international connections and communications, bringing diverse groups together in ways that they would not be able to otherwise. The internet is also a place, in the true sense of the word, wherein spaces are hosted and guested and the rules of hospitality must by necessity apply, else the worst kinds of harm are allowed to happen. Blogging, however, can be a lot like any other colonizing land-expansion: it allows equally for people with valid dreams and visions to find a respectful place for these to be seen into fruition as it does for those with nothing but greed and hunger and disillusionment with what they are ultimately turning away from in turning to a blog."
"There are some who were using the internet in the "glory-days" of exclusivity, before it was fully mainstreamed, who harken back to those nostalgic times where it took a certain level of know-how to stumble into such places, trailblazing or at least "knowing the right people." These days anyone can hop on their phone and become a digital "land-owner" and that can be both good and bad. A person can hungrily devour a corner of the blogsphere to espouse hatred at others over things like disabilities or race or religious experience and identity, just as easily as they can stake out a territory and declare it a safe-zone for progressive human-rights and religious-rights oriented work, dialog, and endeavors."
"A person with a blog can be a force of change or a force of flaming trollfire, rubbing up on everything and leaving it stained, soiled, and ruined for whoever else might come along next. In terms of how this influences the Pagan community? Well, thanks to all of the above - good and bad - we now have a landscape to not only settle some of our differences, but even identify what they are in the first place, and iron out the nuances of language and identifiers - Polytheists from Archetypalists, for example - and from there we can forge the spaces and the rules to navigate those identifiers, those boundaries, and thereby defend the perimeters of the unimpeachable rights and freedoms that we all must, at the end of the day, agree as paramount to our collective doings." - Anomolous Thracian, founder and editor of Polytheist.com
Aine Llewellyn
"Yes and no. Part of me says 'yes' because I'm biased. I'm a blogger, I read other blogs, I live a lot of my life online. Online Paganism, the blogosphere, influenced my own religion and how I approach in-person communities."
"What I see in the blogosphere are conversations about theology and boundaries and where Paganism might go. Of course those conversations are going to affect the wider community. The people writing these blogs are going to go out into their own communities and take these ideas with them!"
"I think the idea that blogging doesn't matter comes from some complex ideas. There's the idea that online interaction isn't 'real'. Then there's the idea that people who blog or read blogs regularly are not 'actually' involved in their communities. This is true in some cases! However, some people don't have offline community, or the one they do is toxic or unsafe in some way, or it simply doesn't fill their needs. And these are just two ideas, both of which need a lot of unpacking to understand..."
"I think to understand why blogging can change our culture, we have to remind ourselves that people, real people, are writing these blogs. They are going to bring these ideas with them wherever they go. We don't know how blogging is going to fit into our history yet. But I think the resentment and snark directed at blogging itself - the mere act of writing and engaging with other Pagan bloggers or readers - is misplaced."
"But I have to also say no, because the petty drama and attention-mongering that we see? That's not important, that's never important. Online or offline. But that's exactly it - the sort of 'me me me' that we see online can happen offline too, and it seems we're very bad at acknowledging that." - Aine Llewellyn, artist and blogger at "of the Other People."
[Photo Credit: www.jisc.ac.uk]The internet is a tool. It is easy to forget how tools can be used to help shape culture and community, how the interlocking pieces influence the outcome and change the trajectory of what is to come. How does blogging culture influence the way that we communicate with one another? How do we connect to leadership or the celebrity status of people inside of the community? How do we identify reliability in our sources when the blogosphere is not monitored, fact checked or screened?
The energetic exchange between blogger and reader is just as important as the words on the screen. We cannot deny the impact of information; whether it is academic, social or personal. The reciprocal nature of communication, and the medium in which it is given in, means that the receiver is just as affected as the giver.
Does the impact of blogging on culture rely on numbers or is it more dependent on the way that people internalize information and take it out into the world? Erick DuPree mentioned to me that, "Blogging might only touch a few people's lives in the grand percentage of the world's populace, but one person reading about compassion, about self care, about magic, or about social justice, is one more person than had there not been a blog." I tend to agree.
How discussions are shaped, how problems are identified and how popular trends are accessed in community largely rely on the blogging community and the conditioned behaviors that the internet fosters. The way that the blogosphere affects the other elements of our community in the long run has yet to be seen, but we do know that the culture of communication and connection has changed greatly since blogging has become a more common means of expression among modern Pagans.Send to Kindle
