Blogging Places: Genre, Place, and Identity in the Network
The purpose of this study is to examine blogging as a “place-linked” genre, exploring in particular how members of the Ecotone blogging community articulate a sense of place in the digital network. Using genre theory as a methodology for studying language use as a form of situated social action, I will argue that identity construction is the cultural work of place blogging, work that involves making sense of both changing experiences of place and rapidly evolving communication technologies. Such an approach will foreground the complicated, contested meanings of “context” and place in a networked environment. Examining place blogging this way offers insights into the nature of place in digital networks and helps develop approaches to genre analysis that are better adapted to studying electronic discourse.