Powerpoint for Web Productions at USYD 2009, ARIN2610

1. Blogs and the Crisis of Authorship:An article by Dr Chris Chesher

2. Who is.. Dr. Chris Chesher? Where’s he been? What does he do? Currently teaches at USYD Previously at UNSW, UTS, Newcastle Uni Worked for many different areas of journalism and media production Teaches, lectures and oversees research. Published in many places since 2003 Digital mediums, Video games, and mobile phones at U2 concerts.

3. Plus, He rocks up to our lectures. ANYWAYS!!

4. Onto the Article... Published in 2005 as a Blog-like post. Initially; blogs as unimportant. Now; blogs have authority. Blog community; grown dramatically. Blogs as continually emerging narratives; ongoing discourse Popular by reception Democratic nature? Will it lead tosocial change? Centralised?

5. Authorship.. Context is expected Context = Metacommunication (information about information) (Bateson) Reader completes experience through understanding context Non-present author represented in context of writing Knowledge from group to individual Concept of author romanticised Author determined field of context as well

6. Blogs and Authorship Problematic No pre-determined amount of information Legitimacy of information? Much more of an infrastructure for info Username, URL, profile privacy levels etc.

7. Blogs and Authorship pt 2 Also, can become significant through relevance in the mediai.e. Dan Rather. A replacement of current homepages More user friendly, opens it up to more people Books and Blogs do differ, but also have similarities. No “deadline” for a blog (unless it has subscribers) No quality filter for blogs Open dialogue

8. Arguments against Webpages VS Blogs; conventional? Webpages aren’t meant to be discursive or overly “wordy” Flawed comparison; use of blogs to websites. Collaborative writing in blogs? Messy crediting necessary? (Unnecessary; not a book) Create a third, collaborative persona?

9. Questions?

10. References Bateson, Gregory (1972) Steps to an ecology of mind, New York: Ballantine Books. Chesher, Christopher (2005) 'Blogs and the crisis of authorship' http://incsub.org/blogtalk/?page_id=40 Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. (1993) The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.