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Abstract
Purpose - Aims to describe systematically the characteristics of weblogs (blogs) - frequently modified web pages in which dated entries are listed in reverse chronological sequence and which are the latest genre of internet communication to attain widespread popularity.
Design/methodology/approach - This paper presents the results of a quantitative content analysis of 203 randomly selected blogs, comparing the empirically observable features of the corpus with popular claims about the nature of blogs, and finding them to differ in a number of respects.
Findings - Notably, blog authors, journalists and scholars alike exaggerate the extent to which blogs are interlinked, interactive, and oriented towards external events, and underestimate the importance of blogs as individualistic, intimate forms of self-expression.
Originality/value - Based on the profile generated by the empirical analysis, considers the likely antecedents of the blog genre, situates it with respect to the dominant forms of digital communication on the internet today, and suggests possible developments of the use of blogs over time in response to changes in user behavior, technology, and the broader ecology of internet genres.
Keywords Communication, Communication technologies, Worldwide web, Internet
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Weblogs (blogs), defined here as frequently modified web pages in which dated entries are listed in reverse chronological sequence, are becoming an increasingly popular form of communication on the World Wide Web. Although some claim that the earliest blog was the first web site created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991 (Winer, 1999), what is commonly recognized as the present-day format first appeared in 1996[1], and the term weblog was first applied to it in 1997[2]. Blogging as an online activity has been increasing exponentially since mid-1999, enabled by the release of the first free blogging software (Pitas, Blogger, and Groksoup; Blood, 2000), and fueled by reports from the mainstream media of the grassroots power of blogs as alternative news sources, especially in the aftermath of 9/11/2001 and during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Current estimates place the number of sites calling themselves blogs at over 2.1 million, of which 66 percent are actively maintained (NITLE Blog Census, 2004). Moreover, as blogging software becomes easier to use, the number of bloggers continues to increase by the day. In the several months during spring 2003...