Blogging is a practice that is mundane and yet radical in its potential to transform individual and collective agency and activism. Discuss.
1)
Brady, M. (2005) ‘Blogging, personal participation in public knowledge-building on the web’, Chimera Working Paper 2005-02>. Colchester . University of Essex 17 March 2011 . available from <http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/content/pubs/wps/CWP-2005-02-blogging-in-the-Knowledge-Society-MB.pdf>
At the beginning, it briefly introduces what is weblog, giving a concisely concept of the format of it, and the history of blog as well. Then it turns to the discussion of blogging, the mechanism that help blogs to collaborate to each other, share knowledge in an unprecedented rate, and its influence. The author argues that “three additions to the blog have had far-reaching effects in the way that the blog community operates”, that are permalinks (permanent links), comments and trackback, these innovations help blogs to form the “blogosphere” community crucially. They contributed to the maintain of the blogosphere and facilitate the networked discussion development, promote communication among different blogs. The number of internet users read blogs increased drastically, a 58% increase was recorded between 2004 and 2005. Blogers share common interest tend to link to each other and start discussion, forming a debate platform around particular subject. These communities can form quickly in response to certain subject, and achieve goals. Writer raises the example of George W. Bush’s military service, the discussing of bloggers greatly affect the result of it. Blogs also help to form a database of knowledge which easy to access, they provide gateways make people easy to find certain information. Blogs itself contain great number and variety of information, it not only facilitates sharing of knowledge, but also produces new knowledge.
2)
Schmidt Jan, “Blogging Practices: An Analytical Framework”, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, (Volume 12, Issue4, 2007), 1409-1427. accessed on 17 March 2011 . available from
This article tries to use a better and more precise framework to understand the blogs. Author lists and compares different model to analyze the format of blog, considers that “no concise and systematic formulation of an analytical model of blogging practices that can integrate the varying motives, routines, and consequences of appropriation and usage of this new communicative genre”. Making use of the sociological structuration theory, which frames individual usage by three structural dimensions, rules, relations and code, author tries to use this framework to analyze blogging practices. Since the forms of blogs are still changing, different blogging practices are emerging, they are not only aim at communication in the way of hypertextual networks, but also form social networks. The framework is used to integrate the previous research findings and as a base for further research of blogging practices. Further research is needed, like using ethnographic methods and discourse analysis to do more, also dimension of code analyze and comparative research among different media systems are need to take into account.
3)
Nardi A. Bonnie, Schiano J. Diane and Gumbrecht. “Blogging as Social Activity, or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary? ”, Social and Behavioral, (Volume 6, Issue 3, 2004). accessed on 17 March 2011 . available from
This research article report the result of an ethnographic study of blogging. It wants to find out why so many people post their privacy on the web, discusses interactions among bloggers, as well as between audiences and authors, and make some recommendation to software of blogging based on the results. Results show, audiences always find out blogs through other blogs they used to read or are reading, or through friends and classmates telling them. Diverse posting frequency was found, some posted on blogs everyday and some less than once a month. Most of the bloggers started blogging because of it is a kind of social activities. When they start a blog, and invite friends to visit, they felt momentum when they recognize the blog really being read. And some make a blog due to ask by friends, and they would discuss contents of blogs and share topics they are interested in the way of comment. Also, blogging activity is object-oriented, bloggers start a blog for different reasons, like release emotional tension, express opinions and seek others’ opinions and feedback. But author thinks it is too early to precisely conceptualize blogs, since it is still developing.
4)
Miller R. Carolyn and Dawn Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog”, (North Carolina State University
Writers describes weblog as a “phenomenon”, since it has raised many questions that crossing public and private section of conventional definition. It is hard to say weblog should belong to which sector, it seems can be wholly public or private and the same time. Writers try to find out why blogging is so influential and what push blogger to start a blog. The term “rhetorical work” was used to describe what blogs perform, through analyzing the rhetorical work of blogs, it may possible to find out the answers of the questions raised above. Also, the method genre analysis was used, intend to examine previous genres to find out rhetorical patterns, to help deeper understand to question of blogging. When analyzing the content of blogs, “…the ability to combine the immediately real and the genuinely personal, a combination that represents a refreshing contrast with the commercial point of view of so much internet content.” , the expression of personality of bloggers was important, it give bloggers the right to select the topics and the form to present, may be these are the most attracting thing of blogging.
5)
Jonathan Schler, Moshe Koppel, Shlomo Argamon and James Pennebaker. “Effect of Age and Gender on Blogging”, (American Association for Artificial Intelligence, 2005). accessed on 17 March 2011 . available from https://www.aaai.org/Papers/Symposia/Spring/2006/SS-06-03/SS06-03-039.pdf
A study reviewed blogs accessible in “blogger.com”, to evaluate the differences in writing style and content between genders and ages. The research examine over 71000 blogs, over 200 common English words were record, to count the frequency they were used. The research got some valuable information which very helpful in blogging practice research, like the demographic attribution of bloggers. According to the result, bloggers aged up to 17 were mostly female, while others aged group were dominated by male, totally the numbers of bloggers were largely under 30. The wording and blogging styles between male and female were very different. When male mainly interested in politics, technology and commercial topics, female would prefer write down their personal life. The style of wording also changes along with age. Older bloggers writing styles become more male despite of gender, which is apparently differ to the case of teenage, so through the wording, we can easily identify the author’s age. But the authors admit that, they ignore the problem of bogus profile information, which is quite common on the internet, and this is also important to research of blogging.
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