Genres Web Paper 3

The Blog as Emerging, Evolving Genre

The use of a constructed blogging identity has recently become high fashion in the computer world. With computers between the faces of those who converse online, we can create a veil to conceal the truth, a mask to construct a new truth, or a magnifying glass to focus in on whatever we please. In this paper, I will discuss the nature, use-value, and appeal of a constructed blogging identity. With references to two specific blogs, I will talk about how bloggers perceive their personal blogging identity, how it constrains them, and what it tells us about the nature of internet communication.

"A Document inMadness, Thoughts and Rembrance Fitted."

-Shakspeare: HamletIV, v, 155

Recently I have become interested in another topic that Iknow little to nothing about. Over the past few weeks, my Emerging Genres classhas been studying a modern phenomenon: the blog. The more I read about blogs,the more I felt like I had seen something like them before. It wasn't longafter that I realized how closely the modern blog, especially when made tocreate a community, resembles the Bryn Mawr College Backsmoker Diaries.

Marina Gallo

Professor Dalke

Emerging Genres

Paper 3

April 26, 2008

Blogs as the Downfall of Paper Media.

To explain the proliferation of personal blogs as a new genre, it has been suggested that "the generic exigence that motivates bloggers is related less to the need for information than to the self and the relations between selves" (Miller, Shepherd). In other words, people write personal blogs because they are interested in getting to know themselves by writing and by communicating with others through writing. The blog, then, is an antidote for two different kinds of alienation. On one hand, the blog brings diverse people together in conversation, expanding what Kate Thomas described to us as the "Incredible Shrinking Public Sphere." On the other hand, the blog brings writers closer to

New genres are created daily toexpress the time people live in. The genre in today’s world is technology.Within this new genre people have found a way to express themselves throughblogs. A blog is a place in which a group of individuals produce an ongoingnarrative. It is created for different communities to come together and expressany opinion on a political, social, economic, or emotional topic they mightfeel strong about. One of the main characteristics of a blog is the ability tomake the readers feel part of a community they can contribute to by writing. Blogginghas become firmly established as a web based communications tool.