Are You My Reader? (Discourse Chronicle)
Comments(9) [Are you my reader? I wonder about this whenever I am doing one of my blog sessions. One thing that fascinates me about hypertext, new media, and blogging is how much potential there is to build an interactive community through its users via computers. However, in order for that to happen, there needs to be voices other than my own here. I know that graduate school semesters are unquestionably brutal and time is a valuable resource, but I would hope that my blog provides a break from monotony. Other reasons for this blog also exist, but that sense of community is important to me, especially when it concerns itself with how we read texts.
I ask myself the following questions during every blog session:
- Am I not getting comments because the site is unappealing in its design?
- Am I not getting comments because the site is suffering from usability problems?
- Am I posting things nobody else cares about?
- Am I posting too many entries per blog session?
- Am I still too new at blogging to be disappointed?
- Is it because I have no students to inflict blogging on?
Now that we are going into Christmas break, I plan on redesigning this site using Dreamweaver and hopefully help from Dennis G. Jerz, one of my mentors from undergraduate, who runs Jerz’s Literacy Weblog at Seton Hill University. I also plan on taking a break from posting new entries to really give people a chance to dialogue with me through comments on any posting and answer my burning question, “Are you my reader?” BK]
Since I’ve been blogging since 1999, and my blog only got comments for the first time in 2003, I had at least a few regulars and a lot of content online for Googlers to find. The field is much more crowded now.
Bobby, maybe instead of ceasing to post any comments at all, you could still post the “so and so has a good idea over at this blog” kind of entries. Send me an e-mail and we can talk about this on the back channel, if you like.
The best way to get exposure is through friends who have blogs who have friends who have blogs. I have a blog and even though I am part of several blogrings, most of the people that post comments are friends of friends or people I’ve posted comments for. I don’t know if you’ve done so, but taking the first step to seek out other bloggers may gain you some reciprocity.
Josh, Good call! Dennis and I are working on getting me to read more blogs and comment on them. I am interested in seeing what you do on your own blog, so please feel free to add me to your monthly update list. A blogroll is one addition I want to make to this site and I will definitely return any blog favors I have been given then.
I post through xanga.com.
Most of my stuff involves poetry or my thought life rather than the journalling that is typical of xanga. Once in awhile I’ll post something acadmic, but only rarely. The blog is a release from academic writing for me and a way to get through writer’s block.
My username on xanga is: pelleas5
Josh, Great blog! Most of the ones I read are non-academic or storytelling blogs, which are hilarious to me, since nothing in my life is ever that exciting. However, seeing Sephiroth as an avatar rocks hardcore. If I had to choose one, then mine would probably be Darth Vader.
Anyway, one of my non-scholarly interests is with interpersonal relationships and its dynamics. Four years ago, I wrote an online handout for my undergraduate university’s Counseling Services, about how to maintain a long-distance relationship complicated by a study abroad experience. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about it.
Heya Bobby —
Well, the internet is a big place! It’s hard to get comments unless you either 1) print lots of inflammatory stuff, or 2) are really famous. Being and doing neither, I just print what I like and if people come by, so it goes. Keep at it, and you know, as the film says, they will come!
Kate, Welcome! I agree, the Internet is a huge honking place and I post things as I find them amusing or worthwhile. I also know that when I began my quest to become a college professor of English that I never said I wanted to be famous, rich, or inflammatory. I said I want to go into a profession that will allow me to help people using every talent that I possess, so what could be better than education?
I think you have a pretty good blog going, but for some reason you aren’t getting to the comic book fans, which are huge in number and good blogging candidates. One possibility is to see if our colleague who’s teaching science fiction this semester and also interested in comics and graphic novels would be willing to spread the word about your blog. When I taught the course everybody wanted to talk about comics, especially the guys. (Which is another issue by the way, the gendering of comics, I mean. Email me if you want to pursue the possbility.)
I would appreciate any and all positive publicity. I know that I plug this blog hard, which may be working, since people could be reading and not commenting. However, I am unable to know that unless they make comments or say something about it offline. Regardless, I fully intend to continue posting things as I find them.