1. Drilling Down: A Look at the Digital Ways Bloggers Tell Their Personal Stories Lois Ann Scheidt October 17, 2009

2. Genres are classes of communication that typically possess features known to their users, common forms and purposes, and name recognition (Swales, 1990). “typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations” (Miller, 1984, p. 156).

3. Genre Theory Limitations Too much emphasis can be placed on similarities at the potential expense of differences (Frow, 2005). It is impossible to typify all possible combinations of characteristics (Kwasnik & Crowston, 2005). Evolving (Yates & Orlikowski, 1992) Emerging (Crowston & Williams, 2000)

4. Weblogs

5. Definition A weblog, or blog, is a frequently updated website consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order.... Typically, weblogs are published by individuals and their style is personal and informal…. Examples of the genre exist on a continuum from confessional online diaries to logs tracking specific topics or activities through links and commentary (Walker, 2003, n.p.).

6. Diary Weblogs Defined Meets the definition of a weblog (Walker, 2003) Posts explore the producers inner terrain and life as it is lived in the first person. Post may be text or multimedia, or any combination there of.

7. First Diary Weblogs Carolyn L Burke – January 3, 1995 Carolyn’s Diary Original a filter weblog Became a diary over time Justin Hall – January 1994 or late 1994 Justin’s Home Page & Links from the Underground Originally a filter weblog Became a diary over time then returned to being a filter before leaving the web

8. Development of Weblog Creation Tools HTML (pre-1999) LiveJournal (March 1999 – present) Website using proprietary software Originally diary weblogs only (until 2003) Blogger (August 1999-present) Website using proprietary software Proprietary software to use on the bloggers site Any subgenre of weblogs

9. Weblog Growth (in millions)

10. Genres of Diary Weblogs Characteristics of weblog producers vs. Characteristics of the artifact (the weblog)

11. Literature Describes Two-Differing Populations General user population Characterized by their use of the technology Younger user population Characterized by age use of the technology

12. Estimates of Non-English Languages use in Weblogs Through Automated Language Identification 2004 – 38.1% (NITLE) 2005 - 31.3% (NITLE) April 2006 – 1/3 of all posts (Technorati) 2007 (Technorati) Japanese 37% English 36% Chinese 8%

13. Adolescent Diary Weblogs Many come down on these blogs as trivial, but they are in fact one of the most amazing facets of the blogging phenomenon. Teenagers talk about what interest them, what’s on their minds, and what issues they are having (Stone, 2004, pp. 53-54).

14. Teens are Blogging Polish bloggers (Cywinska-Milonas, 2003) 75% are less than 21 40% are between 15-17 years old English-language weblogs (Herring, Kouper et al. 2004) 39% are under 20 years of age American teenagers (12 – 17 years old) (Lenhart & Madden, 2005) 22% of respondent keep a weblog 18% of those younger than 15 years of age

15. Gender To date, scholarly studies have focused on both boys and girls (two papers), or on girls only (two papers). Studies on boys use of blogging and diary blogging are lacking.

16. Boys Use more active and resolute language Huffaker & Calvert, 2005) Used more emoticons (Huffaker & Calvert, 2005) Produce more Witness to the Experience entries (Scheidt, 2006)

17. Girls Produce more Unconditional support entries (Scheidt, 2006). Use ingratiation strategies to gain affection and approval (Bortree, 2005). Use direct and indirect expressions of self to gain acceptance (Bortree, 2005). Adolescent queer female diarists join discussions without disclosing self (Driver, 2006).

18. Boys and Girls Did not differ in the use of Passive (Huffaker & Calvert, 2005) Accommodating (Huffaker & Calvert, 2005) Cooperative language (Huffaker & Calvert, 2005) Gender differences in word frequency disappear when the weblog type is taken into account (Herring & Paolillo, 2006)

19. Multimedia Diary Weblogs

20. Photobloggers Orchestrate their presentations by Taking Selecting Annotating Viewing their photographs (Cohen, 2005) Usually do not post daily (Meyer, Rosenbaum, & Hara, 2005).

21. Moblogs Blending of mobile and weblog Usually produced and uploaded via cell phone (Sit, Hollan, & Griswold, 2005). Sites come and go very quickly, with 93.2% of users abandoning their moblogs in 30 weeks or less (Adar, 2004). Initial posts average eight posts the first week, dropping to one per week after five weeks (Adar, 2004)

22. CyborgLogs First-person recording of an activity with the content creator as active participant. Perspective changes from participant to observer, unless using wearable recording equipment (Dickie, Vertegaal et al., 2004). Can be produced with cell phone cameras

23. Audioblogs Least often utilized genre (Trammell & Gasser, 2004) One of the more personal forms of blogging, since the “audioblogger’s voice transmits the message” (Trammell & Gasser, 2004).

24. Podcasts Are becoming staples in Classrooms (Richardson, 2006) Political campaigns (Johnson, 2006) Is used for diary blogging but has not been studied as such.

25. Videologs Distinctions between terms Videolog or vog – edited footage (Hoem, 2004). Moblog – raw footage (Hoem, 2004). Vlog – uses compressed video context (Miles, 2005).

26. Lifelogs Capturing all or parts of a lived life from first-person perspective Most often streaming video