Mr. Clinton...boxers of briefs?

Last week during discussion, class was definitely more exciting than before. We were able to talk a little bit more about topics that people were able to put their minds around. The first reading I am going to refer to is done by Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd and it is titled Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog. Now, first and foremost, my printer ran out of ink while printing the 18 pages needed to copy the entire document so I was only able to read up until about Pg. 6, and gather parts of pages 7-11 or so. This document was rather long, so I will sum up what I think the main point was. Miller and Shepherd are trying to lay out exactly what caused weblogs to come about, and the genre in which they formed. For example, in the 1990’s there was a shift in the country from peoples’ lives being private, to being very public. This was very evident with the uprising of the Real World series and other reality television programs. Well, with weblogs, people are able voyeuristic, exhibitionists, or both. Some people love to read what other people are doing in life, while other people enjoy posting their own stories.

In class, Sara brought up the point that blogging can be more intimate because some people are willing to write things that they normally wouldn’t say out loud to the public because they don’t have to face the people whom they are actually speaking to. I think this is a great point, and that a lot of people are able to come out of their shells because of weblogs and they are not confined by their social ties. Some people have a sense of freedom when they are online because they can express the person who is really inside.

Mike also brought up a great point as to maybe why blogs came around, and from what I got out of it, he was saying that due to the rapid integration of technology into our society, people are becoming increasingly more isolated. For example, people at the bus stops can’t talk amongst one another because of the ipods in their ears. Therefore, they turn to another form of technology, the computer, and blogs for social interaction. I apologize to Mike if this is not really what he was getting at.

There is so much more to this article, but you can read it for yourself because I don’t have time to sit here and discuss every detail. I also wanted to say quick that I have checked out most of the classes webpages, and they are pretty sweet.