Blogs and Essays: Dialogues Between Reader and Writer

By definition, a blog can be both a "commentary or news on a particular subject" (Wikipedia) and, less formally, a personal online diary. A blog, because it is the expression of its writer and not merely a collection of facts, can easily be compared to an essay. Neither an essay nor a blog have many boundaries as far as the subject matter is concerned. Essays can be an expression of opinion, a narration, or any piece of writing from the author’s point of view. Similarly, a blog is an expression of its author. While blogs are created strictly online, essays are mainly printed or published as hardcopies. Because blogs are easily accessible online, they open up opportunities for feedback which essays cannot always receive. A key difference between blogs and essays is the reader's ability to comment on a blog. Probably the main reason blogs have become so popular is the fact that readers can so easily express their opinion, whether it agrees with or contradicts the writer's. Kathleen Norris insists that “always, and in glorious, mysterious ways that the author cannot control, [an essay] begins to belong to the reader.” She explains that a writer must “breathe life into the words on a page” so as to make his or her writing relative to its reader. Norris admits that the reader can either confirm the thoughts expressed in the essay or contradict them, but an essay must always be like “a dialogue between writer and reader.” I think that, according to Kathleen Norris’s description of an essay, blogs are very similar. Blogs, because they are personal, must always connect their writer and reader. And because the Internet makes blogs accessible to virtually anyone, they can acquire a diverse group of readers. These readers can immediately respond to the thoughts expressed in a blog, rather it be political, personal, etc. So blogs, more so than essays, can be an exchange between its writer and its reader.