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[DG] Steve Himmer: Blogs as Literary Form

Steve is going to try to find what’s characteristic of blogs. [Abstract] Is it the technology used? Formal properties? He wants to look at how we read blogs.

Novels ask us to read them through the interpretation of the narrator. Journalism asks us to read through the supposedly interpretation-free objectivity of the author. Blogs do both and neither. Blogs can only be read through the blog author. Readers have to discover the author. This isn’t like interactive fiction, although both are labyrinths, because interactive fiction is done and finished whereas the blogosphere is always under construction. The entry points are dynamic and beyond the control of the author. The sequence is up to the reader. Readers can link to the blog or enter comments on the blog page, thus increasing the labyrinth.

To understand blogs we have to see them as text created by authors and readers, not by tools

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