On 12-Mar-08, at 6:07 PM, Rhiannon Bury wrote:
----- Original Message ---- From: David Brake <d.r.brake@lse.ac.uk>
...It is true that (non-friend/password protected) bloggers are making their material available to be read. But in my own interviews (with 22 personal webloggers) their imagined and desired relationships with readers varied widely and a few of them said they had no intention to be read by anyone else when they started. We need to leave room for the people we study to fool themselves on issues like this (one of the central points of my upcoming thesis in fact!)
Hmm, I don't believe that they are being totally honest with you or themselves, David. They may not have *expected* anyone to read it, (so many blogs, so little time), but if they didn't secretly *hope* to find some sort of audience, they wouldn't have set up a networked blog in the first place. Sounds like a face-saving kind of statement to me. In any case, I'd like to hear more at some point.
Rhiannon
I blog because first blogs were the next big thing, then because I like the ease of creating the web pages. On-line journals of 1995 were difficult which is why blogging software companies make money. I know the audience is the "public" plus the wakos who might do me harm. So I write without some content that might offend. I rarely swear on line for instance. But my point my computer log book blog is really only for me to keep notes on my computers and what I installed on them last night. I sometimes write the posts thinking of somebody trying to install the same software so these would be tips for someone. But unlike many out there I have no money coming in from blogs. Nor is that my expectation. nor am I trying to do advocacy. At least not much on whatever of all my various blogs. One other blog I keep is my school notes. I justify this as a way of self exploration writing, a way to keep my citations all in one place and sometimes I use it to set goals like posting "I will have question 8 marked for 30 papers by 4 am." So my point that writing can be for one's self should not be ignored. Sorry I am not a cultures student so do not see everything as a productive art work in the sense of needing an audience other than myself.. Also I see the blurring of audience and producer to be multi facetted. And I also note your point that there is probably not much of an audience with so many blogs out there. I also carry an axe for the use of bloggers as authoritative voices. I do not want to be in that category.