Friday, 6 September 2013


The way Facebook is mapped, it can be compared to how the blogs work. In a blog you have the opportunity to share anything you like, sort of like a diary. Diaries used to be associated with something that you wrote for yourself, maybe including your deepest secrets. Blogs are compared to writing a diary, just that you selectively think about what you are going to write; because you have an audience (McNeill,L, 2011). This is similar to the way your Facebook wall is mapped. You have the opportunity to write what ever you like, either as a status or on someone else’s wall.

The writers on Facebook do follow some conventions that are used to attract readers. What is common among my friends on Facebook is that they do not write in a formal way. They usually use slang or have shortened words like: LOL (laughing out loud) or OMG (oh my god). In an addition to that, the statuses that get the most like are the one that contain word play or sarcasm. Being funny on Facebook will attract more readers than statuses that do not use humour. When the other members feel like they can relate to what is being written, they are more likely to comment or like the status. You can almost say that Facebook is becoming its own genre, with rules of what to write and not (Luyn Van, 2013) 

REFERENCE LIST 
McNeill, L. (2011) Diary 2.0?: A genre moves from page to screen, in Rowe, C. & Wyss, E.L. (Eds) Language and new media: Linguistic, cultural, and technological evolutions (pp. 313-325). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton. 




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