Are Blogs a New Narrative Genre?
In asking this question I am not referring to "fiction blogs" or "fictional blogs"—but rather to the inherent narrativity of personal blogs as a genre involved in temporal progression, and subject to hindsight and retrospection, rereading, expectations, suspense, surprise turns, etc. Personal blogs are, in a way, the narrative trace of our life online, and it is not out of the question that they may enhance the narrativity of life itself. I'd appreciate further observations and insights on this issue.
Some further thoughts on this topic (in Spanish) can be found here: "Blogs and the Narrativity of Experience / Los blogs y la narratividad de la experiencia."
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1113321
(This is the first discussion in the Narrative Theory social network group I started today).
PS . The group didn't survive January. BlogCatalog suppresses groups with few members, and although I posted news about this group to the Narrative List, only one blog registered... it seems the time for narratological blogs isn't ripe yet... So it goes.
4 comentarios
JoseAngel -
Con respecto a lo que comentas, es interesante lo de los dos tipos de narratividad, y eso de que la segunda consiste en secuencias, líneas o historias establecidas (al menos en parte) por el lector. Eso aproxima el blog a cierta narratividad de los videojuegos con muchas secuencias posibles.
Por otra parte, con respecto a tu segundo párrafo, se me ocurre que también según qué libros se puede empezar a leer de muchas formas, y en algunos se hace sistemáticamente (enciclopedias, pongamos) con lo cual la oposición no sería absoluta. Con lo cual no digo que no exista una condicionante que da la forma. Es, como en una revista, una forma creciente con el tiempo, pero normalmente tienes los demás "números" a golpe de enlace y de clic.
En fin, que es una narratividad particular. Y gracias por la interacción, que como dices es otra dimensión característica de todo esto.
Maite -
My experience in blog reading is quite limited and mainly related to writings which display information and reflections on a particular topic. Anyway, I dare state here a couple of ideas on the way I see how personal blogs may develop narrative structures.
Focusing on blogs that follow the structure of personal diaries, i.e. those which collect experiences, events, thoughts and moods in a chronological order, as well as blogs which may mix those types of posts together with web references, professional writing, notes of opinion, etc., Id distinguish two types of narrativity. The first one would be clearly identifiable in a single post, e.g. telling an anecdote or event, a kind of micro-chapter, or in a chained sequence of posts on something intrinsically narrative. The second one would be extracted from a series of miscellaneous entries which would require the active involvement of the reader to make connections such as cause/effect, before/after, etc. In that case, the notion of continuity, change or development could be gained by inference, e.g. presence and frequency of topics and concerns throughout a particular span of time.
Id also like to comment on a second idea, the dynamic and interactive character of blog writing. The reader is allowed to start (and stop) reading a blog at any time, a factor that may condition the nature of the narration he or she perceives. Furthermore, readers reactions (active or passive) could shape to some extent the authors choice of content and therefore its narration.
JoseAngel -
Maite -