Genrification of Performances in Personal Blogging

Abstract

This article presents a textual analysis of Chinese personal blogs to understand how social interactions and performances are enacted in this evolving genre. On account of the complexity of genre composition, the present analysis focuses on examining the organizational aspect of personal blogs. Data were collected from three Chinese A-list personal blogs and were analyzed through identifying major generic components of the blogs. The findings reveal that these blogs are organized in a complex composition of macro-units and micro-units to engender performances. Factors such as socio-cultural and institutional conditions, individual bloggers’ literacy level, and personal preferences are at play. The personal blog entails temporal stability as it changes and remixes with other genres constantly in response to institutionalizing and acculturating dynamics.