Blog Post 5

Joseph Harris defines writing as juxtaposing one's thoughts with what has also been written, almost always in response. This, he calls, is intertextuality. This is also true in Sullivan's view of blogging; Sullivan takes the responses on his blogs and reworks them into new postings. The two authors also agree that writing is meant to be responded to; however, this is much more apparent in blogging than in traditional styles of writing. Blogs have the expectation of receiving comments, through various functions on the blogging site and general blogging etiquette, whereas traditional writing lacks the ease of response. This leads to where the two authors differ in their views, which also shows the split in the difference between blogging and traditional methods of writing. In traditional writing, Harris claims that "readers rarely respond directly to a writer with comments on his or her text" (5). In blogging, however, half of the experience comes from comments on the author's work that is instantly accessible to the author. Blogging is 21^st century writing—it allows for the reader and writer to interact in such a way that has never been possible. Of course, it will never have the same literary standing as traditional methods (books being a particular medium that comes to mind), as anyone can publish a blog, whereas books and other published documents must go through a cycle of editors, which leads to a more polished and accurate work.

Harris' views on reading startled me, but upon considering it, I find it rings true. The author claims that readers read texts (always with an opinion on what is written, never completely neutral), and that "a book is a text, but so are movies, plays, songs, paintings, sculptures, photographs, cartoons, videos, billboards, advertisements, web pages, and the like" (11). The relationship with the reader and writer must always exist, as when one does not exist, the other fails to have a function; therefore, the actor, the director, the artist, the musician, the photographer, and the graphic designer are all writers. This thought is revolutionary to me, and the very thought of it makes me look at everything around me in a new light.