Perception of self-disclosure and privacy in weblogs

Author analyses bloggers’ understanding of self-disclosure and privacy in this paper. Weblog is like a personal site, where people can write about their personal life, emotions and experiences. More people are using weblogs and disclose personal information. The object of this research is the relationship between bloggers’ self-disclosure and privacy. The objective of this research is analysing how bloggers perceive privacy and how they represent personal information on their blogs. The tasks are: introducing definition of weblog and context; finding the relationship between anonymity, self-disclosure and privacy; creation of a model of perception of self-disclosure and privacy in communication process; analysing how Lithuanian bloggers perceive disclosure of personal information in virtual space. The quantitative method of research was used. According publications in research of weblogs and privacy, a questionnaire was created. Results: many Lithuanian bloggers use their real name and real photos on their weblogs. We can state, that bloggers’ perception of privacy level is low. Age does matter in self-disclosure – elder people disclose less information about themselves than youngsters do. Gender also is significant for privacy perception – women disclose less personal information than men do. Academic background is also significant – the higher educational level is obtained, the higher perception of privacy level is. Only small amount of bloggers would choose to delete their too much personal posts. In conclusion, an assumption can be made that bloggers do not perceive possible outcomes of personal information disclosure online or do not think that disclosing personal information would have negative impact on their lives