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January 26, 2005
van Dijck
I'm digging on the brief history lesson. I used to teach diary and journal writing to adult students, and one of the things that alway came up was audience -- the fact that regardless of when and how we write in our diaries, we are alway imagining some reader. In some cases that reader is the author in some future place. In other cases, the reader is posterity.
What I like about van Dijck's analysis is that blogging (unlike diary or journal writing) IS about creating a social fabric -- about generating new networks (I knew I could squeeze that in somewhere) by exploiting available technologies:
Weblogs or digital diaries are perhaps primarily about synchronising one’s experience with others, about testing one’s evaluations against the outside world. Blogging, besides being an act of self-disclosure, is also a ritual of exchange: bloggers expect to be signalled and perhaps to be responded to. If not, why would they publish their musings on the internet instead of letting them sit in their personal files?
The requirement to be heard. A new forum. Another vehicle. The potential to be heard and be anonymous. Now that's attractive.
Posted by mfrascie at January 26, 2005 09:08 PM