Data and methodology of this study

The Polish blogs selected for the study all come from the platform blogstar.pl.

It is a portal hosting blogs of celebrities who were already famous before starting the blog, similarly to the Japanese celebrities described in the previous section. As in the Japanese blogs, the comments are moderated and the administrator reserves the right to edit or remove them if they contain elements such as copyright infringements, advertising, and – notably for this study – language which is considered abusive or vulgar. However, some vulgar messages are nonetheless left intact. This is unlike Japanese blogs where – as was said before – no such comments were found. Duplicate comments and those containing advertising unrelated to the topic of the blog entry were ignored.

The numbers of posts analyzed for each celebrity is the same as in the Japanese section (200), with the exception of Krzysztof Wieszczek, who had a total of only 110 comments for all of his posts together, but was still selected for this study due to his athletic portrayals of masculinity, which to some extent mirror Kensuke from the Japanese section.

Photos on the Blogstar platform are generally of a higher quality than those in the Japanese blogs. They also tend to be posed, clearly set up without even the pretense of spontaneity. Some photo sessions are sponsored by brands and serve as a form of advertising, hence the professional quality of the visual material. On the other hand, Japanese blogs often include photos which appear to be taken by the authors themselves, including so-called “selfies.”

The table below is a summary of the basic information concerning the four celebrities. The criteria for choosing those four authors were the same as in the Japanese section. They are as follows:

1) 2 men and 2 women who differ in self-presentation enough to allow

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hypothesizing that the address towards them will be different as well.

2) The author must be a show-business “celebrity,” that is a person involved in entertainment or fashion and with enough public recognition to claim the

“official” status for their blogs.

3) Include a number of comments from the readers large enough to allow collecting a sufficient number of address terms to analyze (110 to 200 comments for each blogger).

Table 6: Polish bloggers

Name Age Gender Profession Blog address Dorota Gardias 34 Female TV presenter http://blogstar.pl/author/

dorota-gardias/

Agnieszka

Kaczorowska 24 Female Actress and dancer

http://blogstar.pl/author/

agnieszka-kaczorowska/

Liber 35 Male Rapper http://blogstar.pl/author/

liber/

Krzysztof

Wieszczek 32 Male Actor

http://blogstar.pl/

author/

krzysztof-wieszczek/

Dorota Gardias is a presenter in a popular TV station. The topics she discusses include fashion and beauty. But she is also a mother, and just like Sasaki Kensuke frequently discusses childcare in her posts. She presents herself as a mature working woman who is also taking care of her family.

An additional element of self-presentation in the Polish blogs is the signature at the end of a post. The form chosen by bloggers as a signature is echoed in the replies of the readers, as the data will show. Dorota Gardias signs her posts with her full name.

Agnieszka Kaczorowska is a dancer and an actress. She says that dance is her passion, and it is one of the major topics of her posts. In 2010, she won the title of the World Champion in Latino-American dances. She also participated in the highly popular Polish edition of the show “Dancing with the

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Stars.” In addition to her dance-related activities, Kaczorowska acts in the long-running soap opera “Klan,” which is one of the oldest shows of its kind in Poland still on air. She is also a protestant and makes references her religious faith in some of her introspective posts. Kaczorowska is 10 years younger than Gardias. Although some commenters refer to rumors about her alleged pregnancy, according to the publicly available information she is childless and unmarried. She signs some of her posts Aga, which is a shorter and more endearing form of her first name.

Krzysztof Wieszczek projects an athletic image, dedicating many of his blog entries exclusively to his exercise regimen and sports competitions. Some of the photographs he uploads show only his muscles in tight sports suits, or exposed. Some only present athletic equipment such as running shoes or watches. He signs his blog entries with his full name.

Liber (real name Marcin Piotrowski) is a musician, who started his career as a hip-hop artist and went on to launch his solo career while transitioning closer to pop music. As the artist himself explained in an interview on the program “To właśnie muzyka” in Radio Złote Przeboje, the nickname was given to him by his high school classmates in a reference to the movie “Under Siege,” known in Poland as “Liberator.” The 1992 film is a straightforward action movie, with the eponymous character using combat skills to defeat his enemies. The musician explains that because he engaged in rough-and-tumble play in school, his friends decided that Liberator and later Liber would be a fitting nickname. The pseudonym stuck.

However, in the same interview the artist states that the violence in his life is now left in the past and that he has a more peaceful disposition now.

If his blog posts are any indication, he is telling the truth. The topics he discusses are innocuous: his music, cooking recipes, fishing and travelling. He also distances himself from other Polish hip-hop artists like Peja, who not only projects a threatening and macho image of himself (as many other men in the genre), but also was convicted for inciting violence against a teenager (Sałwacka 2010).

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