Mortensen and Walker, "Blogging Thoughts"
: [W]eblogs straddle the boundaries between publication and process, between writing towards others and writing for oneself. A weblog is always both for oneself and for one's readers. If it were only for oneself, a private diary would be more useful. If it were only for readers, and not a tool for oneself, a more polished and finished form of publication would probably be more appropriate.
: Blogs exist right on this border between what's private and what's public, and often we see that they disappear deep into the private sphere and reveal far too much information about the writer. When a blog is good, it contains a tension between the two spheres, as delicate a balancing act as the conversation of any experienced guest of the French salons of the 19th century.
Some examples of shifting boundaries on blogs
* MidtermNotesPushingBoundaries17Mar04
* RedefiningTheJournal
* BlogTropesAndFigures
Shifting boundaries and changes in writing on wikis
* WikiAsCulture
* GettingStarted
Range of the change
* writer / reader relationin wiki ReaderWriterAuthorship
WriterAndReaderSwapRoles
* role of writer
* role of reader
reader is no longer a passive or entrapped audience. It's very easy to leave and go to something else.
* role of scholar / academic
Foreseen by Vannevar Bush's conception of the memex
* [http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/~paquetse/cgi-bin/om.cgi?Seb's_OpenMind Seb's OpenMind]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikipedia]
changes the nature of the genre
* pre-existing genre adapted to new media / new genres created* changes what a journal can be: RedefiningTheJournal
* change what research entails
* change what a resume is
* tropes and figures
blogging seem to have invented a few new ones - BlogTropesAndFigures
changes how people write
* inventing on the fly becomes final text* providing a new moment to write
* writing from new spaces and new places
* swaps reader / writer relation, especially in wikis
changes in the role of writing / literacy
* the linkIn print text, other writers can be referred to, alluded to, quoted from, but the author's words came first and surround and buffer the external material.
With the link, the thing referred to is equal to - or even more dominant than - the referrer - which changes the role of the writer.
