Danah Boyd at a conference
In her article, “A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the Definition of a Medium,” Danah Boyd discusses how blogs have become a new frontier for communication. These blogs are a medium through with a blogger can communicate with his or her audience or community. Boyd touches on the fact that these blogs create a community of people, as they are public spaces through which people express their thoughts and values. Boyd also discusses various different arguments around blogs, as in are bloggers responsible for what they say in their blogs or if blogs are considered public or private information. Many consider blogs similar to journalism, comparable to amateur journalism most likely, as they have similar characteristics; yet blogs do not always have the resources to back up their statements as journalists do.
In this quote from her text, she explains her methods for research:
This paper stems from ethnographic research on blogging, including twenty months of participant observation and nine months of formal and informal interviews. During nine months of interviews, I engaged in hundreds of informal discussions with a diverse range of bloggers including early adopters and newcomers, college students and working mothers, people who blog professionally and those who do so in their free time. Most of my discussions took place in major metropolitan areas in the United States or through email and instant messaging.