In weblogs groups emerge and dissipate based on what’s being discussed, whereas in a mailing list it’s the other way round: the group exists first and discussions exist within the group. Because weblogs emerge, no one has the power to unform them.
I'm Jill Walker Rettberg, author and professor of Digital Culture at the University of Bergen in Norway. I co-direct the Center for Digital Narrative, a 10-year Norwegian Centre of Research Excellence, and I lead the ERC project Machine Vision in Everyday Life. This site started as my blog in October 2000.
Christian
I think the group exist in weblogs too, as an informal network of ìblogfriendsî. The only difference is that they circulate on which blog they are discussing topics on.
Michael
But doesn’t the grouping in mailing lists also cluster around subject and context? The fact of the list is predicated on shared interest in predetermined discussion topics – yes?
BTW – I’ve remembered what it was that brought me a pleasing whiff of Calvino around here.
First thing I read when I arrived at your site was that left-hand sidebar (even online, I tend to be a literal left-to-right reader). The “interactive narrative” thing immediately made me think of “If on a winter’s night a traveller…” which I still return to after all these years, every now and again. Good enough to make me want to learn Italian.
Sadly, the latest imprint has butchered the original quasi-interactive design of the original soft back. On my moth-eaten copy the text of the work (this page) actually starts on the front cover of the book, continuing within the covers. Same idea recently stolen by Dave Eggers for his latest.
I seem to have wandered off topic.
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
Jill
A post at vlog links to and discusses this post, but I had to delete the trackback because it broke my layout.