Blogs (also known as web logs) are web pages in which dated entries appear in reverse chronological order, so that the reader views the most recently written entries first. Blogs emerged as a web genre in the late 1990s, and as simple and free publishing tools became available at the turn of the twenty-first century, blogging activity has increased exponentially. Since anyone with an Internet connection can publish a blog, the quality of writing on blogs can vary considerably, and blogs may be written about diverse subjects and for many diff fferent purposes. Blogs can be diff fferentiated according to their function, as knowledge-management tools, which filter information, or personal blogs, which are used to document and refl flect on the blogger’s life history. Both types of blog are highly varied and hybrid genres. Personal blogs are infl fluenced by online forms of communication such as e-mail and personal web pages, along with offl ffline genres of life history, particularly diary writing and autobiography. Filter blogs have their antecedents in bulletin boards and Listservs. Blogs can also be categorized according to their topic or relevance to a par ticular interest group. Examples of the genre include blogs written about travel, health, politics, sex, legal matters, and cookery, alongside blogs written for professional purposes on behalf of corporations or as part of educational practice.
(Johns Hopkins University Press)