Is Anything Really Private Anymore?

In the 1990s, the line between public and private life was almost completely decimated due to the explosion of media usage. “Cell phone ownership increased rapidly from 5.2 million in 1990 to 55 million in 1997 ((Eng., 2002) Blogging As A Social Action: A Genre Analysis Of The Weblog, Miller, Sheppard). Society began to obsession at voyeurism. Regardless of what you were doing, it had to be presented. Regardless of what was being presented, it had to be seen. Blogs, a media form favorited in the early 2000s, are exceedingly public, and yet can hold thoughts so personal that others known to the blogger may not have been aware of.

Using Genre to Analyze A Rhetorical Situation

When thinking of rhetorical analysis, we often use small factions of media, such as blog post. Blogs, little digital diaries, were created to present one’s interest to the world and occasionally, posted with the hopes of meeting like minded people. They are often categorized according to genres, often times using lexis, and specific formatting. Despite blogs being a more recent creation, rhetorical works have been around for ages. In order for a rhetorical piece to mold into the proper environment, the genre must be analyzed with Kairos in mind. Kairos is a way of saying the “season of”, or “right time” for an occurrence or topic to be at hand. Blogs are not always genres themselves, sometimes being subgenres of a greater thing. “These journalistic genres clearly require a public audience and usually seek as large an audience as possible, the rhetorical aim being to influence opinion or action” (Blogging As A Social Action: A Genre Analysis Of The Weblog, Miller, Sheppard).