November 25, 2004

Herring, Scheidt, Bonus & Wright: "Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs"

Herring, Susan; Lois Ann Scheidt; Sabrina Bonus; Elijah Wright. 2004. "Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs". Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science HICSS-37.

Abstract:

Weblogs (blogs)—frequently modified web pages inwhich dated entries are listed in reverse chronological sequence—are the latest genre of Internet communication to attain widespread popularity, yet their characteristics have not been systematically described. This paper presents the results of a content analysis of 203 randomly-selected weblogs, comparing the empirically observable features of the corpus with popular claims about the nature of weblogs, and finding them to differ in a number of respects. Notably, blog authors, journalists and scholars alike exaggerate the extent to which blogs are interlinked, interactive, and oriented towards external events, and under-estimate the importance of blogs as individualistic, intimate forms of self-expression. Based on the profile generated by the empirical analysis, we consider the likely antecedents of the blog genre, situate it withrespect to the dominant forms of digital communication on the Internet today, and advance predictions about its long-term impacts.

Synposis:

This article begins with a historical review of where blogging came from and what motivates the hype for various parties.

"Our analysis suggests that the blog is neither fundamentally new nor unique, but that it—along with other emergent genres driven by interactive web technologies—occupies a new position in the Internet genre ecology. Specifically, it forms a de facto bridge between multimedia HTML documents and text-based computer-mediated communication, thereby blurring the traditional distinction between these two dominant Internet paradigms, and potentially contributing to its breakdown in the future." (2)

Genre Analysis. Based on Yates & Orlinowski's work on email which uses rhetoric's version of genre theory to classify "typified acts of communication" based on form and substance, communicative purposes and structures, style, content and intended audience (2). [This section includes a great synopsis of using genre theory to analyze the web.]

Previous Definitions. Bloggers construct definition based on the format, frequency, link structure. Introduces Blood's classification (filters, journals, notebooks). Introduces Krishnamurthy's dimensional classification (personal vs. topical, individual vs. community).

Sample. 203 blogs from blo.gs (which pulls from a handful of blog services).

Methodology. Content analysis. Coded for characteristics of the blog authors when possible, purpose of the blog (filter, personal journal, k-log, mixed purpose, other). Did structural analysis of the blogs (links, images, search, adverts, etc.). Coded for temporal information (update recency, interval and age).

Findings:
- Blog authors: young adult males, similar to other public communication environments [note: does not include LJ, indicative of sample]
- Purpose: 70% are writing personal journals (even without LJ/DL/DJ); females and teens are more likely to write personal journals; "the blogs in this sample share a common purpose: to express the author's subjective, often intimate perspective on matters of interest to him or her. In the case of most blogs, the matters of interest concern the authors and their daily lives." (5)
- Temporal: [sampling concerns]
- Structural components: in order: archives, badges, images, comments, , email, ads, search, calendar, guestbook; Blogger, MT, Pitas, Radio Userland; links to websites, other blogs, news, websites about self, webrings
- Entry body features analyzed too, word average, paragraphs, etc.

"Blood's claim about the origins of the blog is based on the assumption that blogs are link-centered filters of Web content. Our findings show that this assumption misrepresents most blogs at the present time." (9)

Notes an off-line antecedent with the diary journal, k-logs and other primary genre types, arguing that it is not a unique web genre (10). Suggests that blogs also share similarities with other digital genres such as homepages for identity representation.

"All of this suggests that blogs, rather than having a single source, are in fact a hybrid of existing genres, rendered unique by the particular features of the source genres they adapt, and by their particular technological affordances." (10)

"Ultimately, we believe that blogs have the potential to change the way we think about the Web and about CMC, by rendering obsolete any hard-and-fast distinction between the two." (11)

Category: blogging

Posted by zephoria at November 25, 2004 4:22 PM

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