1.
This literature review is to explore how
researchers have constructed genre
and subgenre of single-author diary
weblogs within their research and to
situation these formats in relation to
established genres of paper diaries.

2.
Genre

 Weblogs
 Diary weblogs
› Characteristics of producers
› Characteristics of artifacts
test


3.
Weblogs are creating hybrid forms that

transcend the paper and html forms
from which they are descended.
 Weblogs have become a major source
of information
› Acting as news sources
› Acting as repositories of news-making events
Weblogs are being archived


4.
classes of communication that typically

possess features known to their
users, common forms and purposes, and
name recognition (Swales, 1990).
 “typified rhetorical actions based in
recurrent situations” (Miller, 1984, p. 156).

5.
(Crowston and
Williams, 2000)

6.
Paper Electronic
Reproduced
academic academic
online
articles articles

7.
Too much emphasis can be placed on

similarities at the potential expense of
differences (Frow, 2005).
 It is impossible to typify all possible
combinations of characteristics (Kwasnik
& Crowston, 2005).
› Evolving (Yates & Orlikowski, 1992)
› Emerging (Crowston & Williams, 2000)

8.
Who

 What
 Where
 When
 Why
 How
(Yoshika, Herman, Yates, & Orlikowski, 2001)

9.
Medium factors

 Situation factors
(Herring, 2007)

10.
Synchronicity

Message transmission (1-way vs. 2-way)

Persistence of transcript

Size of message buffer

Channels of communication

Anonymous messaging

Private messaging

Filtering

Quoting

Message format


11.
Participation structure

One-to-one
›
One-to-many
›
Many-to-many
›
Public/private
›
Degree of anonymity/pseudonymity
›
Group size; number of active participants
›
Amount, rate, and balance of participation
›
Participant characteristics

Demographics: gender, age, occupation, etc.
›
Proficiency: with language/computers/CMC
›
Experience: with addressee/group/topic
›
Role/status: in “real life”; of online personae
›
Pre-existing sociocultural knowledge and interactional
›
norms
› Attitudes, beliefs, ideologies, and motivations

12.
5W1H

› Gives additional framing to genre “recurrent
situations”
› Has the same limitations as genre
Faceted Classification

› Detailed scheme
 May lead users to think it is all inclusive
 Fictional vs. Real author

13.
A weblog, or blog, is a frequently
updated website consisting of dated
entries arranged in reverse chronological
order.... Typically, weblogs are published
by individuals and their style is personal
and informal…. Examples of the genre
exist on a continuum from confessional
online diaries to logs tracking specific
topics or activities through links and
commentary (Walker, 2003, n.p.).

14.
Web log

› Computer logs
› Referrer logs
› Software to mine various logs
Weblog

› Jorn Barger (1997) Robot Wisdom
› Peter Merholz (1999) peterme

15.
Log books

 Clipping services
 Commonplace books
 Personal webpages
 Cam websites
(Miller and Shepherd, 2004)

16.
Meets the definition of a weblog

(Walker, 2003)
 Posts explore the producers inner terrain
and life as it is lived in the first person.
 Post may be text or multimedia, or any
combination there of.

17.
Carolyn L Burke – January 3, 1995

› Carolyn’s Diary
› Original a filter weblog
› Became a diary over time
Justin Hall – January 1994 or late 1994

› Justin’s Home Page & Links from the
Underground
› Originally a filter weblog
› Became a diary over time then returned to
being a filter before leaving the web

18.
HTML (pre-1999)

 LiveJournal (March 1999 – present)
› Website using proprietary software
› Originally diary weblogs only (until 2003)
Blogger (August 1999-present)

› Website using proprietary software
› Proprietary software to use on the bloggers
site
› Any subgenre of weblogs

19.
112.8
120.0
100.0
70.0
80.0
60.0
40.0
20.0 4.0
0.0
2004 2007 2008

20.
and Diaries
•Diarists
•Bloggers and Weblogs

21.
Written by a single author

› While many diaries have a single author, others have
been written collaboratively.
In secret

› Many are not secret, friends and relatives may be
encouraged to read and comment in the diary itself
For him- or herself only

› Written to present the author’s life to an audience
outside themselves
Confessional mode

› Many diaries are not confessional
 For example: Travel Diaries

22.
Homosexual writers

› Identified through purposeful sampling
› Queer, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual
Used full names

 Cities of residence
 Photographs
 Protect others privacy, more than their
own
(Rak, 2005)

23.
Participants choose not to password

protect entries
(Schiano, Nardi, Gumbrecht, &
Swartz, 2004).
 Participants express concerns about
privacy but their online activities
overshadow their concerns
(Viseu, Clements, & Asinall, 2003).
 Diarists feel protected by the size of the
internet (Serfaty, 2004).

24.
Diary weblogs can create connection

between readers and writers
› Reader as
 Passive
 Active
› Comments
› Linking
› Trackback

25.
Similarities between the readers and the

writer
› Karlsson (2007)
 Female
 Chinese ancestry
 25-35 years old
› McNeill (2003)
 When I find a diary I like…I engage in a
marathon reading session to get caught
up, then frequent the site daily, anxious for
new entries (p.24).

26.
Characteristics of weblog
producers
vs.
Characteristics of the artifact
(the weblog)

27.
General user population

› Characterized by their use of the technology
Younger user population

› Characterized by
1. age
2. use of the technology

28.
2004 – 38.1% (NITLE)

 2005 - 31.3% (NITLE)
 April 2006 – 1/3 of all posts (Technorati)
 2007 (Technorati)
1. Japanese 37%
2. English 36%
3. Chinese 8%

29.
Many come down on these blogs as
trivial, but they are in fact one of the most
amazing facets of the blogging
phenomenon. Teenagers talk about what
interest them, what’s on their minds, and
what issues they are having
(Stone, 2004, pp. 53-54).

30.
Polish bloggers (Cywinska-Milonas, 2003)

› 75% are less than 21
› 40% are between 15-17 years old
English-language weblogs

(Herring, Kouper et al. 2004)
› 39% are under 20 years of age
American teenagers (12 – 17 years old)

(Lenhart & Madden, 2005)
› 22% of respondent keep a weblog
› 18% of those younger than 15 years of age

31.
To date, scholarly studies have focused

on both boys and girls (two papers), or
on girls only (two papers).
 Studies on boys use of blogging and
diary blogging are lacking.

32.
Use more active and resolute language

Huffaker & Calvert, 2005)
 Used more emoticons (Huffaker &
Calvert, 2005)
 Produce more Witness to the Experience
entries (Scheidt, 2006)

33.
Produce more Unconditional support

entries (Scheidt, 2006).
 Use ingratiation strategies to gain
affection and approval (Bortree, 2005).
 Use direct and indirect expressions of self
to gain acceptance (Bortree, 2005).
 Adolescent queer female diarists join
discussions without disclosing self
(Driver, 2006).

34.
Did not differ in the use of

› Passive (Huffaker & Calvert, 2005)
› Accommodating (Huffaker & Calvert, 2005)
› Cooperative language (Huffaker &
Calvert, 2005)
Gender differences in word frequency

disappear when the weblog type is
taken into account (Herring &
Paolillo, 2006)

35.
Text-
based
Diary Still-
Video
Weblogs image
Sound

36.
Orchestrate their presentations by

› Taking
› Selecting
› Annotating
› Viewing their photographs (Cohen, 2005)
Usually do not post daily

(Meyer, Rosenbaum, & Hara, 2005).

37.
Blending of mobile and weblog

 Usually produced and uploaded via cell
phone (Sit, Hollan, & Griswold, 2005).
 Sites come and go very quickly, with
93.2% of users abandoning their moblogs
in 30 weeks or less (Adar, 2004).
 Initial posts average to eight posts the
first week, dropping to one per week
after five weeks (Adar, 2004)

38.
First-person recording of an activity with

the content creator as active
participant.
 Perspective changes from participant to
observer, unless using wearable
recording equipment (Dickie, Vertegaal
et al., 2004).
 Can be produced with cell phone
cameras

39.
Least often utilized genre (Trammell &

Gasser, 2004)
 One of the more personal forms of
blogging, since the “audioblogger’s
voice transmits the message” (Trammell
& Gasser, 2004).

40.
Are becoming staples in

› Classrooms (Richardson, 2006)
› Political campaigns (Johnson, 2006)
Is used for diary blogging but has not

been studied as such.

41.
Distinctions between terms

› Videolog or vog – edited footage
(Hoem, 2004).
› Moblog – raw footage (Hoem, 2004).
› Vlog – uses compressed video context
(Miles, 2005).

42.
Capturing all or parts of a lived life from

first-person perspective
 Most often streaming video

43.
Method of choice for weblogs

research, to date
 Research technique for making
replicable and valid inference from data
to their context
 Can be done by hand, by machine, or
by combination

44.
Focuses on manifest content and

inferences
 Does not get at
› motivation for production
› Reaction to the content produced

45.
Participant Observer

 Observation Only
 Interview Only
 Combination of Observation and
Interview

46.
The effect of the researcher’s presence

on the study
› Particularly when the researcher is marked
as different from the participants
Documentation to support findings

 Preservation of documentation

47.
Online/offline

 Sampling
› Viral
› Snowball
› Convenience
› Computer-assisted telephone interviewing

48.
Standardization/consistency

 Lack of social context

49.
Permission

 Informed consent
 Are they really teens?
 Access to the population
› In the wild
› Structured environments
› Researchers children

50.
Particularly to HCI

51.
Genre can be

› Social practice
 Embedded clues to
 Community practices
 Cultural practices
› Classificatory categories
 Search and Retrieval
› Conventions of form and structure
 Cognitive and mental modeling

52.
As LIS is interested in how knowledge in
documents and other artifacts is
organized, genre theory is a productive
perspective.
Anderson, 208, p. 340

53.
On –the-go diary weblog post creation

› Technological issues
› Selection
Multimedia particularly lifelogging

› Who
› Where
› When
› Why
› How

54.
Generation Net

› Use and developmental stage
 Changes over time
 Gender development
› Reputation management
› Longitudinal studies

55.
Boys production of diary weblogs

› Technological affordances used
› Why they create diary weblogs
› How they coordinate their online and offline
lives