Week Five - Well read blogs

Find some well-read blogs from outside the New Media Cultures unit community that impress you and analyse how the author/respondents use the blog as a forum to present themselves and share ideas.

http://shamelesslysassy.com/
Shamelessly Sassy is a blog written by Amanda Hill, a freelance writer and blogger. She uses the blog to discuss her life, and general issues that she has some thoughts on. Her writing style is humorous and honest. The blog was a finalist in the category of best writing of a weblog at the 2008 bloggies.
From what I read, Amanda presents herself as a busy, slightly quirky mother who is friendly, open and honest. Via the blog, Amanda shares her life with her audience, from stories about her daughter and family to testing products and recommending them to her general day to day activities.
The audience can comment on each post if they want to. From reading the comments, I got the impression that most people tried to present themselves as similar to the author, they agree with what Amanda says, or sometimes offer advice or tell stories about themselves which are similar to the authors posts.
In these terms, the blog is also used to share ideas, when the author posts a blog where she is questioning an issue, many readers respond to her with their thoughts. The responses are all positive.

http://www.soveryalone.com/
So very alone is written by ‘Harlan’. It is generally about his life, and how he ‘feels like he is drowning’ The posts are all about what is happening to him, updates on problems he shared with the audience previously and problems. The whole site is quite depressing compared to the upbeat nature of 'Shamelessly Sassy'.
The author presents himself as lonely, depressed and generally unhappy. All of the posts that I read were written negatively and expressed to his audience how upside down he thinks his life is.
The audience can post responses to each post. Most tend to be giving advice to Harlan about making him feel better where as some are agreeing with his situation, saying they have a similar outlook to him. I think some of the respondents find Harlan’s blog therapeutic or as a means of support, as one person commented “I am alone too - somehow I feel less alone knowing you are out there.”

http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
Iain Dale is the author and creator of Iain Dales Diary, a daily blog about politics. It is described as “A unique brand of political commentary, humour and gossip”. The blog is read by party leaders and cabinet ministers, attracting more hits than the three top party sites combined.
The author presents himself as having a knowledgeable opinion. The blog is also used to promote other aspects of his career, such as magazine interviews he has conducted. I found after reading through some posts that the blog that many posts seem to be a round-up of particular stories from a variety of publications with what his opinion of the situation is. The humour part of the blog is brought in through his writing style and gossip is included as some posts are about political speculations.
The readers represent themselves in the same way as the two other blogs; via commenting. The majority of comments are supportive, agreeing with what he has to say and stating that they like his work. The audience use the blog as a forum to share ideas about current political affairs.