Danah Boyd at confrence
Danah Boyd’s article “A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the Definition of a Medium” seeks to examine the meaning of what a blog is and provide clarity to its purpose in today’s world. Boyd works in the School of Information at the University of California – Berkeley. Her methodical approach to the subject matter includes information compiled from sixteen different bloggers over a nine month period. Aside from providing a brief history and formal definitions of blogs, blogging, and bloggers, she utilizes her research to shed a more realistic light on what blogging means to the people who do it.
Managing a blog allows you to have control over the content you publish and who can view it. Some chose to create private blogs, while others allow their blog to be viewed and even commented on by the public. The aims of who bloggers are trying to reach also differs greatly because while some bloggers try to capture as many people possible, other simply try to speak to a like-minded audience.
Blogging means many things to many people. There is no right way to use a blog, and over time there have been numerous ways people use blogs to express themselves. People may use blogs as their online journal while others use blogs to become part of a discussion or larger online community. Some even choose to create a photo blog. Essentially, blogs are as diverse as the people who use them. Boyd observes that a blog is an extension of oneself – a digital persona that is built overtime with each new post.