Journal Article Analysis

A Million Little Blogs: Community,

Narrative, and the James Frey Controversy

This article talks about how someone can misrepresent themselves when using social media such as blogs and what types of issues this could cause. This story begins back in 2003 with the story about James Frey, a man who published a book about his life struggles with alcohol addiction and how he was accused of misrepresenting himself.

This story about James Frey also involves Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, and the online community. After Frey’s book got published, he made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show to talk about his book and his addition. After the appearance, a news site started doing some investigating on Frey’s past and on their website they published a story called “A Million Little Lies: The Man Who Conned Oprah”. Soon after, Frey made an appearance on Larry King Live with this; more and more viewers started reading Frey’s blog. From this a website called BigJimIndustries.com was developed that attracted other readers who were also struggling with additions which became somewhat of a support group for Frey. All of these events led to became somewhat of a scandal story because Frey misrepresented himself. As a quote from this article says, “the question becomes not a matter of what James Frey did or did not reveal or convey, but rather: how does the media event that propelled these communities establish and maintain a set of culture values and concerns (Nunes, 2011, pg. 357). In reference to the James Frey story, Elizabeth Bird made a comment saying “scandal stories, like other stories, bring changing more into sharp focus through media narratives and the popular discussion that takes off from those narratives, whether in homes, workplace, or on the Oprah Winfrey Show” (Nunes, 2011, pg. 351)

There are several other stories this article references about someone misrepresenting themselves online to deceive their audience is the Kaycee Nicole story, and the Joan/Julie story.

This article also references two different understandings of online communication. One being that online communication is a tool used for users to communicate with each other and be able to “speak from the heart” and used as a mode for self-expression. The second being that when communicating online you shouldn’t trust anyone because you don’t really know who you are speaking with, anyone can pose as being someone else. “We might think of this event as marketing a conflict in narrative within popular culture, a conflict that did not originate in or limit itself to the world of blogs, but which is best understood within this communicative context” (Nunes, 2011, pg. 357).

            I do agree with the main points in this article. I agree that it is easy for someone to misprepresnt themselves online through social media and blogs. I also agree that when it comes to celebrities like that of James Frey, the media can easily turn stories or events around to make them seem something more which in turn leads to misrepresenting the other person. For James Frey, he might have come out and wrote a book about his struggles with addiction but it was the media that turned it around and make it a scandal.

I think this article is important for the online community to learn from, both for those that may have misrepresented themselves to their readers through blogs or other uses of social media, for the readers of these articles online and anyone that may be may create an online blog about themselves. This just proves that everyone does need to take caution in what they read and write about themselves and what they believe to be true online.

Reference Page

Nunes, M. (n.d.). A million little blogs: Community,. (2011). The Journal of Popular Culture,

44(2), 347-363.