Louise Heurlin and Mikaeal Wahlstedt

My friend Kenza and I

- A study about one-way relationships on blogs

Abstract

A para-social relationship is a one-way relationship between two individuals, one of which feels they have a real relationship with the other, without having met physically. In today's social media, young girls easily create this type of relationship, for example through blogs. The blogosphere is dominated by young girls, both when it comes to writing blogs and reading blogs. Our study investigates how these one-way relationships are shown on blogs that are read by girls between the ages of 13 and 16 years.

This thesis is centered around two questions; How is a para-social relationship shown on a blog, in today's social media? How is the readers one-way relationship shown to a female blogger?  To answer these questions we have analyzed the theory of the subject, employed a focus group, distributed a questionnaire and analyzed the comment field of blogs.

Based on our results of the study, we could divide the blog-reading girls in two different groups; those who claim to have a friendly relationship with the blogger and those who have an idolized relationship with her. Common to these two groups are the necessary conditions for a para-social relationship to emerge on the blog; regularity in the girls' blog reading and the bloggers’ updates, inspirational content and a personal appeal to the blog. Para-social relations are mainly expressed in the comment field of blogs, since 13 to 16 year old girls, see the chance to test their identity on the Internet in ways they do not dare in real life.