… to one of my earlier academic interests – which I still keep up, I’ve a review of a book on blogging, The Mirror and the Veil. As I say in the review:
Serfaty writes: “The screen … establishes a dialectical relationship between disclosure and secrecy, between transparency and opacity” (13). When I think of two of the “diary-type” blogs that I read regularly, Petite Anglaise and Personal Political, I see that as a potentially useful framework for thinking about their writing. In the first case, Petite apparently discloses all, yet she is very careful to screen her physical identity; in the second case, “Susoz” admits her difficulties in dealing with the separation of the two and makes this part of her online persona.
It was the attraction of the metaphor that took me to the book, but as you’ll see if you read the review I was otherwise disappointed. Maybe I was unduly harsh – the other three reviews there are more positive, although express some of the same reservations, but perhaps more tactfully – have a look and see what you think.
(The cynic in me notes the other three reviewers are academics…)
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