Defining blog: A fool’s errand or a necessary undertaking

Abstract

Weblogs (blogs) emerged as a grassroots phenomenon in the late 1990s and since then their growth has been staggering. There has also been a growing body of scholarship with an underlying assumption that there is consensus about the definition of the word ‘blog’, which there is not. This article reviews some of the varied ways the term is being used, addresses the distinction as to whether a blog should be considered a medium or a genre, and considers whether links and comment-threads are defining characteristics. This article argues that the real problem is not that the term blog is difficult to define (it is) but that most scholars are using it in vague, contradictory, ambiguous and imprecise ways. Definitions require descriptive qualifiers to reflect current usages, and scholars need to provide clear and precise definitions according to the particular research questions asked and the target populations of interest.