Writing with and for an audience

It's funny that this reflection is about writing with and for an audience because my scholarly project topic was on writing for an authentic audience. After reviewing my research and reflecting on the project, I began to feel that all writing should have the opportunity to be shared with an authentic audience. Blogging this semester allowed me to explore my perspective on writing with and for audience and personally, I think writing with the awareness of your audience and having the weekly feedback from my think tank is a valuable experience. This process also inspired me to reflect on my experiences with writing for/with an audience online.

Writing for a select audience on the internet has been a practice of my for the last 15 years. Prior to the advent of blogs, during my high school days in the late 90s, a group of friends and I started to share our thoughts on an email group we called the "hello there" list. ("hello there" was always the subject line) It was just a list of 30-50 people (depending on the year) that we "replied all" to constantly. We discussed school drama, our home lives, music, TV... you name it. I remember how exciting it was to read through my email at the end of the weekend and see that I had 35 messages. A friend of mine still has all of the "hello there" emails saved in a file. I wonder if there's evidence of digitalk on those... I bet the beginning of digital language is there. I know most of us chose not use any capital letters when sharing those emails.

After "hello there" began to dissolve as most of us went to college, I began to keep a livejournal. This was a blogging site that allowed writers to "friend" other writers and to see all of their livejournal posts on a "friends" page. I kept my livejournal page up until the fateful day when I signed up for facebook. :)

Because of my experience with writing for/with an audience online has spanned over 15 years, I some times wonder where I fall on the continuum of digital native/immigrant. I'm comfortable writing in public forms and have been posting my thoughts online for years, but I did adapt to this practice as a young adult. I was not working online when I was 10... does that make me a digital immigrant? I'm grateful I didn't post my 7th grade thoughts online, but if I was in the 7th grade now, I wouldn't have that choice. Is that what makes me a digital immigrant, the fact that I still consider my online filter? My enthusiasm to share online is accompanied by a hint of caution and concern for my future reputation. I'm very interested in the experience of writing digitally and how it continues to evolve. This blogged helped me explore that topic and many more throughout the semester. :)