Miller/Shepherd and "Blogging as Social Action"

"Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog" by Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd attempts to situate blogs into a specific genre. It provides a background about the needs of individuals to express themselves more publicly and receive more private information about others.  Additionally, it describes the evolution and history of weblogs in the 1990s.

While reading the article, I reflected on some of my previous experiences with blogs.

I had my first blog during high school. It was hosted on a site called Xanga and it was overly personal. I just looked it up and I can't believe that I wrote some of the stuff that I wrote. Throughout all of the posts that I read, I don't think I ever used a capital letter. I also had this habit of including random curse words and typing "uhmmm" a lot. Overall, it seems to relate closely with the diary genre. However, many of my friends were active on the site and knew it was my blog, so it had an intended audience.

Throughout my undergrad, I had to create a few blogs for classes. The one that I became most involved with was a blog that I wrote during Electronic Community with Dr. Brooks last year. I posted quite regularly (3-5 times a week) and tried to mesh my personal perspective with somewhat academic topics. Although I intended to keep up the blog after the class ended, that only lasted for a little while.

Now, as a teacher, I am requiring my students to keep a blog. They each have their own blog that is listed as a link on the class blog. I provide them with prompts each week and they are supposed to write a post that is at least 200 words. During many of the initial posts, I observed very informal language that was the equivalent of text-speak. Also, they seemed to forget that I was going to read it. Many of the posts were blatantly honest and critical. I assume that this type of reaction would not have been the same if I had asked them to write a reflection in class.

At the end of the article, Miller and Shepherd concluded, "The blog-as-genre is a contemporary contribution to the art of the self" (1469). In many cases, I think this designation fits. In each of my different experiences, blogs cause individuals to open up and expose more about themselves.