Gimlé

How then can one attribute several discourses to one and the same author? How can one use the author-function to determine if one is dealing with one or several individuals? Saint Jerome proposes four criteria:

(1) if among several books attributed to an author one is inferior to the others, it must be withdrawn from the list of the author’s works (the author is therefore defined as a constant level of value);

(2) the same should be done if certain texts contradict the doctrine expounded in the author’s other works (the author is thus defined as a field of conceptual or theoretical coherence);

(3) one must also exclude works that are written in a different style, containing words and expressions not ordinarily found in the writer’s production (the author is here is conceived as a stylistic unity);

(4) finally, passages quoting statements that were made, or mentioning events that occurred after the author’s death must be regarded as interpolated texts (the author is here seen as a historical figure at the crossroads of a certain number of events).
Foucault—What is an author?

Elizabeth Lane Lawley asked her students what they thought a ’blog was, using the class weblog to collect their thoughts and ideas into a single space.

Weblogs according to the students are for the most part either a way for “people to share information or thoughts” or “a forum in which many users can share there opinions about any given topic and discuss.”

What most of the comments and views have in common is that weblogging seems to be a group process. It is always a part of a community, group topics, a gathering of ideas.

Your writing is, if they are right, always presented in the context of what others in your group say about it—it has no life, no meaning, no relevance on its own. Your views are assimilated into the groupthink which is derived from the amalgamated lowest common denominator.

Frequently mentioned in the discussion there is the message board and the blog as an evolution of that kind of community-owned discourse.

The popularity of this view is understandable for many reasons.

The first reason is that of experience. Most, if not all of the students, are very familiar with the concept of the online discussion via message boards and mailing lists.

The second has to do with the way we have all been trained from childhood to create our identity only in relation to groups.

Who we are is supposed to depend on what group we belong to.

What we think is more important if it coincides with the groupthink.

Our opinions only matter if the group agrees with them.

It can be argued, and if my memory isn’t playing tricks with me, has been argued that the online message board and online discussions in general allow for higher quality discussions and freedom of speach.

But we do not generally associate multiplicity and diversity of opinion with sites such as Slashdot and Metafilter.

OSnews, another discussion site which has come close to suffering from groupthink, has been saved so far from the “Slashdot” fate because it has been formed for the most part by a single strong voice. Something that is unfortunately (for OSnews, not for Eugenia) about to change.

It is Matthew DeTurck that makes the most important point in the thread, a point that should never be underestimated:

I think a blog is a convienient way of posting to the web, to be accessible to be read by anyone.

Weblogs are tools, a gathering of lightweight content-management systems that make updates, linking and cross-referencing easier so that most people can have a regularly updated website without making it a full-time job.

Message Boards, and their evolutionary descendants such as Slashdot, Metafilter and Advogato, are tools for communities. They enable the group to exist—engage—over a distance, with its components spread all over the world.

That tool enables the group to create and maintain an identity in a way that was impossible before.

But that doesn’t highlight—reveal to us—what weblogs enable the normal user, our average citisen, to do.

This is my voice.

The weblogging tools I use to maintain this site allow me to recreate my voice—my thoughts—as an online body of work with all the baggage and meanings that the author-concept brings with it.

It is a multitude of voices, independent, discussing, creating, engaging, that the weblog brings forth into the world.

Voices that, if not for these new tools, would otherwise have been prevented from coming into existence by the economies of print.

Baldur.
Clifton, Bristol.