blogging - writing or discourse - have I answered my own question?
Having just finished the marking of my student?s on-line journals, I need a bit of self-reflection. Not that the task was an odious one mind you. Actually, in the main it was just the opposite.
It’s just that, some of the students embraced the weblogging idea with extremely reflective writing. Not only did they reflect upon the course itself, but some managed to find time to pursue other lines of thought and commentary as well.
Most students, who really ?got into it?, had some great discussions with themselves. The strange part is, in their feedback sheets, I now realise that in nearly every case I complimented them on these ?discussions’ without even thinking about it.
And I have been pondering as to whether weblogs are writing or a form of social discourse? Maybe I have inadvertently answered my own question.
It seems as though Barthes may have been right when he said that writing in a journal is not a text but a discourse. Mind you, that sets him at odds with his theory of the author being killed off in the writing. Doesn?t it?
Interesting.
I think that blogging is definitely about conversation and oral communication. Chatty, informal etc. And there is a strange sort of multiple ownership of the text that are produced because of comments, which often go off on tangents and produce sub conversations between the commenters.
thanks Meredith
I’m inclined to agree with you, although there are some bloggers who remain adamant that they are ‘writers’, and maybe they are, if that’s the way in which they write. But if they are writing for others, or themselves, it seems like like some type of discourse is taking place.
My students were being reflective in what they wrote and having a converstaion with themselves about problems they may have been having with software or computers or the uni system or whatever. Other students were agreeing or not and so on.
So yes, converstaions grow, writing can’t do that. Maybe we do have some completely new form of textuality here.
The closest non-computer thing I can think of that is like the conversations that occur between writer and reader in blogs is “marginalia”- where the reader writes in the borders of a book. (phew- what a clumsy sentence…) And then, of course, the conversation is all one way, though often other readers will come along and add their two cents worth. You get the feeling that they would really like to speak with the author but have to settle for second best- talking to the book itself (and future readers, I guess.)
I guess in that sense then, the author does die at the point of writing, and the reader begins to interpret the text, without the benefit of feedback from the author.
Then, each succesive reader would be stuck with interpreting not only the original text, but all of the commentary that adds to it.
That has always been a problem with marginalia written as a translation of old texts. Our interpretation of what the intent of the original author was is so far removed. Add our own subjectivity into the mix and things could blur further.
I origianlly thought blogging would be social discourse with more intimacy and less embarressment about that intimacy. After three months I’ve decided the authors, poets, and romantics are definitely being pushed aside by techs, geeks, and gurus of cyperspace. Few sites are just for fine and entertaining reading. Most are about new spam squishers, blog templates, hexidecimal whatever, etc. etc. Everyone is just moving or redecorating all the time.
I guess that the way we achieve intimacy is converse with people who are of a like mind to ourselves.
There is no need to listen to the geeks and gurus if you don’t want to. Sometimes the seeking is as interesting as the finding. On occasions, even more so.
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