Edited by Janet Giltrow and Dieter Stein
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 188] 2009
► pp. 143–162
This chapter analyses online users’ debates about the generic classification and ancestry of “blogs” and “Internet diaries,” looking in particular at users’ defensive definitions and meta-generic commentary that would distinguish the blog from the diary. I argue that these directives draw on traditional generic stereotypes, reproduced from print culture, that associate the diary with the narcissistic, feminine, and amateur, qualities apparently antithetical to self-styled “bloggers.” Since actual practice does not necessarily support a tenable distinction between blogs and diaries, I suggest that such genre claims arise from and protect particular communities’ ideals about the World Wide Web—and therefore its forms of communication—as novel. These often-heated commentaries offer opportunities to explore how communities understand and invest in genre in an evolving situation. A blog is not a diary. A diary is where you store private information and self reflection about your life, snapshotted feelings, etc. A blog is publicly there for anyone to see….A blog is a living autobiography… –Austin (2006 19 Oct.) Weblog, n. A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary. –Oxford English Dictionary (2003) Defining “blog” is a fool’s errand. –Jeff Jarvis (2005 27 Aug.).
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