Methodological Considerations of

Diachronic Internet Research

Genres on the Internet between

Stability and Change

Peter Grube, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

New document genres have emerged,

while older ones have blended,

changed, and been incorporated into

different social endeavours [...] new

electronic genres emerging frequently

appear to be shuffled, disassembled,

and then put together again, in a

seemingly chaotic manner.

(Crowston & Kwásnik 2005: 79)

2

3

A Dynamic Genre Model

Genre as Multi-Layered Phenomenon

Structure

Situation

Function

Genre

5

Form of Communication

Structure

Situation

Function

Genre

Form of Communication

Multimodality:

• pictures, videos…

• layout

• hyper textual elements

6

Function

Structure

Situation

Genre as Social Action

Genre

Form of Communication

A Community’s

Social Practice

7

8

Function

Structure

Situation

Form of Communication

A Community’s

Social Practice

Diachronic Research on the Internet

Internet Archive and Wayback-Machine

10

Looking for a Needle in the Haystack…

11

Research Corpus: DIABLOK

Part I: 1997-2000

19 Weblogs listed on

Infoshift (1999)

Part II: 2002-2011

Personal Weblogs

collected at Globe

of Blogs

DIABLOK = Diachrones Blog Korpus

12

Applying the Model…

… Preliminary Results

General Change: Length of Postings

InfoShift 1998

One Ideal Life 2011

14

General Change: Length of Postings

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1998-1999 2002-2005 2006-2008 2009-2011

Average Length of Postings

15

General Change

t

Va

lue

s o

f o

ne

fe

atu

re

t1 t2 16

Genre Split V

alu

es o

f o

ne

fe

atu

re

t1 t3

t t2 17

Personal Homepage and Personal Weblog

Blog Joe Clark

(1999) 18

Pattern Embedding

Va

lue

s o

f o

ne

fe

atu

re

t1 t3

t t2 19

Pattern Embedding: Tweets

20

Form of Communication I

Migration

Form of Communication II

21

Conclusion