Blog versus print: expectation of audience interaction
Monday, September 8th, 2008 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth[sorry, I do seem to be posting a lot today: I'm transcribing a long interview and posting/LJ is a pleasant break! As is wiping out humanity: background task.]
Following earlier posts today (first one, second one) concerning inclusion of material from LJ posts in a book ...
... I've identified what feels wrong to me about this, and it's that the act of posting to a blog -- especially to LJ -- is intended to provoke dialogue, whether positive or negative. If I'm writing just for me, it's private (or more usually scrawled longhand somewhere). Anyone posting anything to LJ has the expectation, of response. And if that post is republished elsewhere in a medium where there is no easy and immediate way to respond, then an important part of the reason for posting has been removed.
(When I'd had LJ for a few months, I wrote a post and then OK'd it, unedited, for inclusion in a printed fanzine. The response to the fanzine publication made me aware of how differently I'd write if I were writing for print: less in-jokes, less provocation, probably rather less light-hearted. Part of the reason for the difference was that if somebody didn't like, or didn't get, what I was saying in print, it was a lot harder for them to ask, criticise, complain, poke fun at me than it would be on LJ.)
Following earlier posts today (first one, second one) concerning inclusion of material from LJ posts in a book ...
... I've identified what feels wrong to me about this, and it's that the act of posting to a blog -- especially to LJ -- is intended to provoke dialogue, whether positive or negative. If I'm writing just for me, it's private (or more usually scrawled longhand somewhere). Anyone posting anything to LJ has the expectation, of response. And if that post is republished elsewhere in a medium where there is no easy and immediate way to respond, then an important part of the reason for posting has been removed.
(When I'd had LJ for a few months, I wrote a post and then OK'd it, unedited, for inclusion in a printed fanzine. The response to the fanzine publication made me aware of how differently I'd write if I were writing for print: less in-jokes, less provocation, probably rather less light-hearted. Part of the reason for the difference was that if somebody didn't like, or didn't get, what I was saying in print, it was a lot harder for them to ask, criticise, complain, poke fun at me than it would be on LJ.)
