Mediated collaborative positioning: The case of prisoner blogs

Imprisonment changes the rules of interactive engagement. The balance of duties and rights is tipped as incarcerated persons bear a diminished amount of control over their interaction with others, especially those on the outside. Based on the blogs of five prisoners, we ask how the internet is used to change the rules of engagement with the outside world, especially in terms of redefining the moral space of rights and duties within which persons position themselves and others. A third party, who we call “positioning mediators”, succors the prisoners to re-negotiate their positioning in this mediated interaction. We examine the mediators' meta-positioning and the prisoners' re-negotiation of self-positioning in the cyberspace and cybertime within the interactive discourse of prisoners' blogging. Our conclusion shows how this blogging ultimately allows for the resumption of authors' agency and subjectivity.