Online Diaries: Transformation of Medium and Meaning - New possibilities: Communities and more!

Despite the added, negative aspects of potential lawsuits and threatening audiences of blogs, the ability to generate a large readership through the internet has given online diarists the chance to learn from one another and create communities. Like in the eighteenth and nineteenth century diaries, readers have the ability to post comments on blogs, so they provide a much more interactive, fruitful dialogue than private diaries. As Carolyn Burke says, “Suddenly I had an audience from the Internet. Nameless, faceless people - the Internet - spoke back to me. The Internet, a blur of people, became my therapist, my confidant, my intimate friend” (DHP). Unlike diaries of the past, online diaries allow bloggers to receive feedback from people they don’t know, who are perhaps from a different country or have completely different opinions from them. It is through this ability to connect with very dissimilar people that many bloggers and readers learn from one another. 1996 blogger Lunesse says, “I learned tons about others, of course. Lives I never will live myself, thoughts I wouldn't have come across on my own. I have learned how to better process and work through some things in my life as a result of reading how others went through similar things” (DHP). This access to the emotions, activities, and lives of others provides readers the opportunity to learn about and learn from many people unlike themselves.

Additionally, because online diaries are (or have the potential to be) very personal, many bloggers form strong connections and communities through reading about one another’s online lives. Some bloggers end up meeting each other; for instance, Jennifer Wade says, “I've met nearly thirty other diarists, and I count many of them among my closest friends” (DHP). Or bloggers, such as Jesse Chan-Norris, whom I quoted in the context of catering to audiences, form such strong connections that they marry.

Thanks to linking to other blogs and the connections bloggers form with each other, bloggers’ thoughts and ideas often grow from one another. As scholar Jill Walker says, “In closeknit communities, like LiveJournal, the narration of weblogs sometimes seems like a group autobiography” (Walker, 16). The communities formed through blogs are unusually strong. I think Steve Schalchlin puts it succinctly and well when he writes: “Our diaries illuminate. They change peoples' lives. They create community and family” (DHP).

Therefore, blogs, though still diaries at a basic level, are in many ways so much more than written diaries. They can have links to articles that pertain to what the writer is thinking about; they can link to friends’ blogs, so the reader can read about the same event in the eyes of a different person; and, as I’ve said before, they can create communities through these links and posted comments (Walker, 16).

Current Mood: rejuvenated