Who Do You Blog For?

Molly asked, Who Do You Blog For?  and says,

I’m absolutely certain that I blog for myself. My blog is the all-me, all-the-time station. That’s its purpose, and if zero, ten, or ten thousand people read or stopped reading, it wouldn’t matter. I’d blog to an empty house or a full one. For me, blogging is an outlet for all aspects of my nature whether personal or professional, as my blog description clearly states. My desire to please people suggests, at times, that maybe I should let my audience drive my content. But my instinct demands that I stay true to what and who I am, not what others want.

DrumsNWhistles says that she blogs for herself, and lists  some of the benefits.  She goes on to say,

The one thing that has bothered me about blogging in the larger context of community is the implied need for a focus.  Over at Blogher, I’m listed as a mommyblogger. I don’t consider that a negative term, but I don’t view it as an accurate description for this blog, either. In fact, after the initial listing I asked to have the category changed to the “personal” category, but it didn’t get changed and so “mommyblogger” I am over there.

I don’t know what focus/category this blog belongs in, or what I am, really. Maybe eclectician? Jane of all trades, mistress of none? Do I really need a category? Is it okay to be just whatever I am today? I hope so, because I really don’t know how to do it any other way and get as much joy out of blogging as I do right now.

About a year and half ago, Frank Paynter asked, Why Do You Blog?

A week or so ago I gave myself the assignment of conducting a survey for the IT Kitchen: "Why do you blog?" I asked.  I like easy answers, and by asking others perhaps I hoped to find the easy answers for myself.  Certainly, I thought, it would be valuable to compile insights from some of the articulate digital self publishers known as "bloggers."  Little did I know it would turn into a hobby.  Here are reflections from thirty-five bloggers, an even three dozen if you count me.

The discussion continues.  Frank now blogs at Listics.

Anne Davis (EduBlog Insights) in April 2006, talks about the many ways blogs can be used in education, and dispells the myth that blogs are just online personal journals.

Several in the class knew about blogs but the definitions were consistently those of it being an online journal only. I love being able to dispel those notiions. It is exciting to be able to share the possibilities that blogs offer us in education. The majority of this bright class were Elementary Ed majors so I took them through The Write Weblog and modeled how you can use your blog to teach and learn from each other and then empower the students with their own blogs to explore their own learning. Each time I get the opportunity to talk about blogs I continue to be amazed at how interactive this process can be as you stand back and see the writers with distinctive voices emerge. There is really nothing like it. We talked about potential, possibilities and the need to truly listen to our students.

Turning to the Great Oracle Google, I find the following pertinent replies:

Suw Charman talked to design bloggers  in January 2005

On April 6 2006, Robert O'Toole, in the context of academic blogging, asked

We should ask more widely of all bloggers: "why do you blog?”. The first and key step in answering this question is: "who do you blog for?" – "what is your intended (or implicitly assumed) audience?" The intention of a blog may be to inform, enrage, impress and so on, but those effects are always relative to and motivated by the imagined effect on a given audience. The blogger blogs so as to have these effects on an audience. Sometimes, as in a solely reflective blog, there is an audience of one, the author themselves. Even so, the motivation is to have an effect on that audience.

Barbara W. Klaser asked on February 11, 2005, Who Is This Blog For?

But who am I really writing for, here? Myself, of course. Don’t we all, if we bother to express ourselves? If we’re honest? Don’t we all want to be understood just as we are, and accepted at face value? Don’t we all seek out like minds? We wonder who is like us and, sometimes with dread, who isn’t.

On March 5 , 2006, The Washington Post published a piece by Frank Aherns, collecting the responses from bloggers to the question, Why Do You Blog?
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Barbara Klaser responded to Aherns' question in her own blog, and asked these questions:

So I wonder, why do other people blog, and how do you feel about it?
Have your reasons for doing it changed since you began?
Have you written posts or comments you regretted?
Does blogging accomplish a purpose for you? If so, what?

Mother-Woman is a "stereotypical blogger" -- meaning, her blog is about her family and life.  Late in March 2006, she started wondering, Who Do You Blog For?  The comments are excellent, and one of MoWo's readers,  Life in Mama Land --replied in her journal

Jim Walton asked the question in the context of not forgetting the purpose of your blog, when the going gets rough.

On January 10, 2005, Christine explains why she blogs:

I still have the same goals for my blog today that I had when I first started my online diary. While I do enjoy being read and being able to write my rather lengthy opinion pieces I do this because I enjoy it. And isn't that all that really matters?

On April 25, 2005, ChickyBabe from Australia observed,

There is an emerging pattern amongst bloggers, a phenomenon I have recently become attuned to, one which has swept me in its whirlwind. A question rests on many bloggers' fingertips, one that has been often raised here and in my correspondence with some of you,

"Who do you blog for?"

Many of us have started our blogs as a form of self-expression, a creative outlet for inner thoughts, fantasies or for working through events in our lives. We may express thoughts and feelings we do not wish to share with our IRL friends, giving us a medium for total honesty without fear of retribution.

But on  December 2, 2002, Doug Hyatt asked, Who Do You Blog For? in the context of privacy--what you say can come back to haunt you.

The question is  good in all contexts.  The answers will surely vary by the asker's own purpose for blogging.

 

Comments

[DrumsNWhistles]

Wow, great roundup of the discussion! This one got tagged for del.icio.us -- it's a keeper.

Thanks, Liz! (and thanks for the nice comments on the new blog design, too...)

DnW