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The genre of HBW, although in blog form,
is more like a compilation of opinion-based news articles, rather than a
personal diary. However, the compilation is in chronological order, giving the
reader a diary-like experience in this respect.
HBW assumes readers have a “presupposed
knowledge” (McNeill, 2012, p. 321) of its content, that is, local events,
landmarks, and political happenings. This creates a sense of community. This is
in opposition to the McNeill quote “even in a public venue, diarists do not
typically advertise that they are adopting a disclosing attitude towards
overhearers – doing so would compromise the ‘authenticity’ of the reading
experience by reminding readers of the diaries public setting.” (McNeill, 2012,
p. 322). This blog is not attempting to assume the genre of the diary form (Van
Luyn, 2013). It instead thrives and survives on readers viewing and commenting
on its content. A convention to attract a sense of community rather than a
personal space is to refer to “we” rather than “me”.
Another technique the site uses is to
continually provide links and tags so that the “overhearers” (McNeill, 2012, p.
322) have an understanding of the blog’s material. This is not creating a
private or intimate atmosphere.
Some other conventions adopted in order
to attract and entertain its audience, is to utilise satirical and comical
images and bold, suggestive titles. An example of this is an article from last
week, in which they discuss Campbell Newman selling off North Queensland assets to overseas investors. The
title of this article is “Campbell Newman and Ass Tourism Minister Gavin King
working hard to sell off all Queensland High-End Tourist Business”.
The fact that most people who comment on
the blog are anonymous or use pseudonyms implies that they are not attempting
to gain “street-cred.” However, they build up a persona on the website to the
point that a reader could predict their response to a particular article before
they even write it. So whether they are being authentic or not is difficult to
perceive. What they write may in fact just be a performance.
References
McNeill, L. (2011). Diary 2.0?: A genre moves from page to
screen, in Rowe, C. & Wyss, E.L. (Eds.) Language and new media:
Linguistic, cultural and technological evolutions (pp. 318-323).
Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.
Incessant Barking [image]. (2012). Retrieved 8th September 2013 from http://jams201.tumblr.com
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