The digital medium of the weblog, or “blog,” offers writers a platform for reflecting on, navigating, assembling, and publishing narratives of the self. Bloggers must also determine how to position themselves in relationship to their audiences in order to achieve the desired narrative that emerges from a prolific number of posts and often from reader comments (Bamberg, 1997). Thus, the medium of the blog affords its users multiple tools to aid in meaning-making and identity construction, namely its continued narrative, its instability, and its ability to blur the lines between author/reader roles and public/private discourse.

Continued Narrative: The blog medium promises a continuation of the narrative its author begins. Because of its reverse-chronological construction, the blog platform prioritizes the newest, latest information in attempt to fulfill this understood promise to the blog’s readers. This refusal of closure is not only alluring to the blog’s readers, but also to its author (Fitzpatrick, 2007). The blog’s narrative can go any direction the writer wishes or needs it to go. The platform, then, tempts its writer and reader to keep writing or keep reading, pointing to the users’ conflicted desire for both completion and incompletion of the narrative.

Furthermore, because of its potential for narrative continuation, the blog author can construct his/her identity through writing. A crucial part of this identity construction, however, is the ability to reflect upon the self through the narrative presented. Because of the other features the blog offers, this opportunity to reflect is available because of post archives, tags, labels, etc. This continued reflection, then, necessarily accompanies the narrative’s continuation in order for the writer (or reader) to construct a meaningful narrative and sense of identity.

Instability: As Kathleen Fitzpatrick (2007) suggested, the blog medium is inherently unstable, and this instability certainly coincides with the continued narrative. The constant building of the narrative and feedback from users makes the blog’s narrative subject to change. With every comment and with every addition to the blog, the narrative changes, and it changes rapidly. This instability poses challenges for blog writers and readers in piecing together and constructing a coherent narrative from its many parts. The challenge for the readers is that they are constantly attempting to discover the author based on the newest information provided on the blog, which requires constant reassessment (Himmer, 2004). It could easily be argued, though, that the same is true for the blog’s author. In the process of constructing the blog, narrative, and self, the author must be attuned to how each building block of the blog alters the narrative and thus alters the presentation of the self. The instability of the blog thus contributes greatly to its nature and the construction of the narrative in that there is arguably only a sense of stability at the moment of composing a specific post. Once published, that post in combination with others causes the narrative to once again be in flux.

Complicating the Author/Reader and Public/Private Binaries: Another particularly important characteristic of this medium is its unprecedented ability to blur the lines between author and reader roles and public and private discourse. The interactivity between author and reader in the blog space, for example, shows that the blog affords users the ability to communicate across spaces in ways that have not been achievable before this medium’s emergence. The readers often contribute to the narrative in ways that influence and/or alter the narrative entirely. For instance, in Maggie’s (2012) blog Lifting the Weight, reader comments sometimes serve as the catalyst for Maggie to refocus on her goal of the rebuilding process when she seems discouraged or on the verge of relapsing into a depressive state.

The public/private binaries are also blurred in that blog writers often post very personal experiences and emotions on their blogs, providing windows into their lives in a very public space. This public/private nature of the blog can make the writer vulnerable and raises questions about what the public forum of the blog affords the writer. What are the benefits of belonging to the blogging network and does it justify such personal responses and vulnerability? These questions deserve some consideration in trying to better understand the blog’s many affordances.