Blogging

Jill Walker Rettberg is professor of digital culture at University of Bergen.

Thoroughly revised and updated, this new edition of Blogging provides an accessible study of a now everyday phenomenon and places it in a historical, theoretical and contemporary context. The second edition takes into account the most recent research and developments and provides current analyses of new tools for microblogging and visual blogging.
 
Jill Walker Rettberg discusses the ways blogs are integrated into today's mainstream social media ecology, where comments and links from Twitter and Facebook may be more important than the network between blogs that was significant five years ago, and questions the shift towards increased commercialization and corporate control of blogs. The new edition also analyses how smart phones with cameras and social media have led a shift towards more visual emphasis in blogs, with photographs and graphics increasingly foregrounded.
 
Authored by a scholar-blogger, this engaging book is packed with examples that show how blogging and related genres are changing media and communication. It gives definitions and explains how blogs work, shows how blogs relate to the historical development of publishing and communication and looks at the ways blogs structure social networks.

Authored by a scholar-blogger, this engaging book is packed with examples that show how blogging and related genres are changing media and communication. It gives definitions and explains how blogs work, shows how blogs relate to the historical development of publishing and communication and looks at the ways blogs structure social networks.

Acknowledgements vii
 
Introduction 1
 
1 What is a Blog? 5
 
A brief history of weblogs 6
 
How blogs have adapted to a social media ecosystem 14
 
Three blogs 17
 
Defining blogs 30
 
2 From Bards to Blogs 36
 
Orality and literacy 37
 
The introduction of print 41
 
Print, blogging and reading 44
 
Printed precedents of blogs 45
 
The Late Age of Print 47
 
A modern public sphere? 50
 
Hypertext and computer lib 53
 
Technological determinism or cultural shaping of technology? 57
 
3 Blogs, Communities and Networks 62
 
Social network theory 66
 
Distributed conversations 69
 
Technology for distributed communities 72
 
Facebook and Twitter as microblogs 76
 
Publicly articulated relationships 82
 
Colliding networks 83
 
Emerging social networks 86
 
4 Citizen Journalists? 90
 
Bloggers' perception of themselves 93
 
When it matters whether a blogger is a journalist 94
 
Objectivity, authority and credibility 97
 
First-hand reports: blogging from a war zone 101
 
First-hand reports: chance witnesses 104
 
Bloggers as independent journalists and opinionists 107
 
Gatewatching 108
 
Symbiosis 112
 
5 Blogs as Narratives 115
 
Goal-oriented narratives 116
 
Ongoing and episodic narration 118
 
Blogs as self-exploration 127
 
Fictions or hoaxes? Kaycee Nicole and lonelygirl15 129
 
6 Blogging Brands 135
 
The human voice 136
 
Advertisements and sponsored posts on blogs 139
 
Micropatronage 145
 
Sponsored posts and pay-to-post 147
 
Exploitation and alienation? 152
 

Corporate blogs 155
 
Engaging bloggers 161
 
Corporate blogging gone wrong 164
 
7 The Future of Blogging 169
 
Implicit participation and the perils of personalized media 170
 
References 176
 
Blogs Mentioned 186
 
Index 189