Reading about blogs

A few quotes in the book Blogging help me to think about blogs and identity:

"When blogs tell stories, they generally do so in an episodic form, with each post being a self-contained unit that contributes to an overall narrative. Each post makes sense in itself, but read together -- not necessarily in sequence -- the posts tell a larger story. That story is usually partial and incomplete, and does not form of narrative whole will as well formed stories in mainstream literature and cinema do. Instead, the overall story as gleaned from reading a blog is likely to be pieced together from fragments, perhaps supplemented by bits of stories from other places."(Rettberg, p. 115)

"Just as we study ourselves in the mirror, shaping our features so are reflections please us, so we create a reflection of ourselves in a weblog. At the same time, we use our blogs to avail ourselves, not telling all about presenting only certain carefully selected aspects of ourselves to our readers."(Rettberg, p. 120)

Here Rettberg reminds us that even though writing is often thought of as a solitary writing practice, writing a blog is considered a social endeavor. “Blogs are a social genre. Bloggers don't simply write to their “dear diary,” they write into the world with a clear expectation of having readers. (Rettberg, 57).