Bringing Bakhtin to Digital Age: An Analysis of Weblogs' Dialogism Seyyedeh Fahimeh Parsayian

The world of weblogging with all its appealing and repulsive virtual realities is coming to conspicuous prominence. From a discursive point of view, weblogs are seen as an ''asynchronous meditational means'' through which ''inter-individual'' interactions take place. Inspired by Bakhtin's dialogical philosophy of language, the present study sought to explore how issues of ''dialogism'', ''polyphony of voices'' and "self-projection" are manifested and practiced in weblog spheres. To this aim, the voicing events of a class blog (including the bloggers' responses, reactions, reflections, etc.) were traced over an extended period of time. Having examined the accumulated posts, it was revealed that dialogism in this environment occurred through a constant process of voice trading during which the bloggers lent and borrowed voices to and from each other. When these voices got mingled, more than one voice could be heard from each individual person. The next phase of the study was followed by setting eyes on self-projection of three participants (the teacher and two of the students) as they positioned and projected themselves at different occasions. The ultimate findings of the study demonstrated how these people cast different modes of beings which although may not necessarily duplicate their identities off-line, yet, might represent laminations of them.

Weblog, Dialogism, Polyphony, Self-projection