THE DISCOURSE OF BLOGS AS A PARTICULAR TYPE OF INTERNET COMMUNICATION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of discourse studying. In the modern society, the communicative vector has changed its direction towards “electronic” or Internet communication. One of the most popular and wide-spread tools of this type of interaction that meets demands of the wide range of users and can be easily fulfilled by every average philistine is blogs and blogging in general. The aim of the research is to analyze blogging, to find its peculiarities and factors leading to the discourse of blogging identification as one of the separate types of network communication. Starting its functioning in 1994, blogs have gradually gained the market of communication. Today they have grown and spread to many spheres of human activities, emphasizing visual component of interaction in the form of video blogs or vlogs.

Both foreign and Ukrainian scientist study this issue, providing various definitions of this term. However, these terms are rather narrow and do not reflect all peculiarities of blogs usage, that is why the article has provided new definition of a blog. The sphere of blogging has its own participants: - authors of web pages that can be presented by both individuals and legal entities; - potential readers / watchers who are regarded as the target audience; - moderators of the Internet environment who are responsible for maintenance of law, netiquette and order while communication. In addition, the research has outlined main functions of blogging, which include: a) communicative: receiving and sharing information, broadening the range of friends and clients; b) entertainment, which is typical for those who do not have other ways to spend their free time; c) self-representation and self-promotion, especially actual for representatives of art professions; d) integration and networking: blogs are created for a particular social group or people who have the same interests and problems; e) intellectualization of the society and its particular members by broadening the understanding of addressants and providing knowledge in easy and affordable manner. The blogging discourse has the following features: intertextuality, multimedia and interactive character, synchronicity or dyssynchrony of communicative processes, explicitly of communicators and non-verbal means of communication.