Thesis attempt #1
Friday, November 18
1:55 AM
I've got quite the backlog of stuff to post and stuff to read, and no time to do either at the moment. Here's the tentative thesis I posted for my precept:
I'm interested in the rhetorical aspects and narrative features of the "average" blog, as opposed to the ideal blogs usually discussed. It's often assumed that almost all bloggers want to emulate the A-list bloggers, and an analysis of how most bloggers are writing would challenge that issue and go to the larger theoretical question of why they're writing.
As part of the issues created by this notion of "average," I'm also curious about the writing done within different imagined communities online; those determined by software choice are both dramatically different and easily identified. The question of blogging genres (what they are, how well can they be sketched out) also needs to be addressed before any discussion of technoprole goals.
Primary Sources:
*Randomly selected blogs. The current go-to paper for this kind of close analysis is pathetic stats-wise and much too old, so I'm revisiting the math I need now before I begin data collection.
*Pre-existing wide-scope blog surveys (Perseus, etc.)
*Blogging award winners and nominees, as potential points of aspiration.
(Naturally there's also a bit of scholarship in addition to the primary sources, but I take it you don't want that list now)
Alles Wird Gut
