Normalizing Identify: The Role of Bloggin Software in Creating Digial Identify presented at the 2008 Digital Humanities Conference in Oulu, Finland, June 25-29, 2008

Abstract

We offer a new in-depth methodology for looking at how the use of blogging software delineates and normalizes the blogger’s creation of posts and, by extension, the creation of her blog self. The simple choice of software is not simple at all and in fact has a great influence on the shape a blogger’s identity will take through the interface, program design, and data structures imposed on her by the software. This primarily technical discussion of a topic seldom considered in studies which look at the cultural impact of blogging, will illuminate the inner workings of the medium and gives due credence to Marshall McLuhan’s argument that “the ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs” (8).