ABSTRACT

Individuals who host their blogs independently on their own websites generally enjoy access to a greater variety of formal features and consequently have more freedom of expression. This suggests they should have greater flexibility in presenting the various aspects of their online self. Yet, as Lynn Z. Bloom observes of diarists, an individual’s awareness of a reader’s presence leads to selfcensorship, and the subsequent presentation of the self as a central character in the narrative tends to be audience-oriented (Bloom 1996). It is reasonable to assume that individuals who write publicly accessible travel blogs must likewise be aware of their potential audiences and that they create these narratives with their readers in mind. Such an awareness of the reader is not new to the writing of travel. One only needs look at the journals of Christopher Columbus or the more recent account of Captain Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition to recognise that many of the first travel diaries were records of exploratory journeys and voyages and were, as such, worded as public documents for others to read (Columbus 1989; Scott and Allen 1978). Bloom notes that this audience awareness reflects in an author’s use of language and in the formal features of a text so that: ‘once a writer, like an actor, is audience-oriented, such considerations as telling a good story, getting the sounds and the rhythm right, supplying sufficient detail for another’s understanding, can never be excluded’ (Bloom 1996, pp. 24-25).