Abstract
Frequently considered in its relation to genres like the diary or journal, the blog or ‘weblog’ is a personally orientated and chronologically ordered form of serial online representation. One of the earliest Internet-specific mediums, blogging is now one of the most wellestablished, recognizable, and diverse genres of online communication (Blood 2000; Rosenberg 2009). A ubiquitous contemporary mode that covers a spectrum of uses from the public and political to the private and personal, blogging is also a diverse media form. Though still recognizably a text-based mode, characterized by discrete entries or ‘posts’ in which users narrate subjective reflection or commentary, the speed and ease of mobile technologies and the accessibility and prevalence of phone cameras has seen photographs become a central feature of the blog and the video-log, or vlog, has emerged as another distinct branch of the medium. A distinct sub-genre within the larger ‘blogosphere’, drawing on all the media just outlined, is the travel blog, which enables travellers and tourists to record and communicate their experiences in words and images accessible online. These travel blogs offer an almost limitless archive of travel information with a very broad reach. But this archive may also be extremely fragile and impermanent; like blogs more generally, moreover, travel blogs are often linked to the corporate commercialized functions of the Internet as marketplace.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing |
Publisher | Routledge, Taylor & Francis |
Chapter | 27 |
Pages | 298-307 |
Number of pages | 10 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781134105144, 9780203366127 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780415825245 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2015 |