please empty your brain below
I do think that trying to analyse London Weblogs is like trying to understand the ecosystem of the ocean by looking at the waves, though.
I would posit that in order to understand blogging, you have to be motivated to have and maintain a blog. How many of the learned academics writing on the topic have actually done that?
What about reason 6 - to win a publishing contract? Many bloggers seem to have that as a dream!
It's a close parallel to the world of English teachers/professors. Those people, with their worksheets and "exercises" put more kids and young people off reading than any other group.
And you, of all bloggers, don't need external "validation".
(My own humble scribble is mostly 2 and 3. But we have fun playing with all sorts of numbers...)
This is a group of wildly differing writers, with geography their only real "congruence". (As James Blogwell put it - quite well.)
Very early days. Only a fortnight. But already the idea's been snapped up on the diva (local) guest fortnight.
Not sure whether the academic study of weblogs is a good thing, though I suppose it's inevitable. As an English postgraduate research student, I'm always amazed by some of the topics around which academic conferences are based - and I guess blogs are as ripe for discussion as anything else. This development, whether inevitable or not, is bound to upset some people though - those who only see blogging as an enjoyable hobby and refuse to take it too seriously. As intriguing as Ralph's paper sounds, there's a danger that it and other papers like it will make blogging seem like the preserve of the serious individual intent on documenting either their own life or the life of the place in which they live. For many bloggers, of course, it's just a bit of fun, and that shouldn't be forgotten.
This could change as life goes on or if there were fellow bloggers in Jakarta to add 5.
As for the 6, getting a publishing contract, I'm about to start a monthly column in a new business magazine. Maybe there should be a 7 ~ writing by thinking.
Once again, thanks for the topic, DG.
And I find it very strange to be mentioned in an academic paper...
I personally think I'm mainly (1) - but only because I have what some people consider an interesting job, with a bit of (2) and (4), and a surprisingly small amount of (3).
Can I say (6) - Trying to teach people not to dial 999 for a bellyache they have had for twenty minutes?
Out of the 1-5 probably all five, but the main reason I've started blogging is:
1) because I can;
2) onionbagblogger kept on nudging me to, so I have
3) I can take the piss out of all the middle class pseudo-intellectuals who do! (Dont' bother asking me what that means, it just sounds good!).
4) I get to look up new words in the dictionary to add to my limited working class vocabulary!
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