Geographies of Audience (1)

1) Audience and Purpose

• To write about a place but not necessarily for an audience in that place; to explain the place for people in other places
• To write both about a place and for an audience in that place (civic participation, activism)

2) The Edge Effect: Creating a Community Online

"The importance of reading other peoples' blogs is not as an escape from the limits of ones own geographic situatedness, but as a means of engaging more fully with ones own place...insight into other ways to engage a place--heuristics and ways of thinking one can bring back to ones own blog."

"We cannot fully understand our local environments unless we understand how they are connected to global forces always acting on it, often without us knowing....If the internet as a technology has driven globalization in many ways, it might also be a medium that enables individuals to better understand the affects of global forces on any local situation."

3) Lure of the Local

Blogging can "create local knowledge that might be contributed to the ongoing historical identity of the places...success for a local blog is measured by its ability to foster deeper local involvement over time."