Dave Pollard’s Blogging as Conversation, No Echo Here starts a decision flowchart of which method to communicate with:
- Can you afford the time and cost of face-to-face?
- Are you communicating criticism or bad news? …
but the post’s text continues into many supporting examples, related aspects, and musings. What is it that speaker/writers trying to do? Why do reader/listeners read or listen? A digital-age starter piece covering ground that many others have wrestled with—I studied it as Robert Longacre’s “discourse grammar.” Pollard brings in group conversation and links to Jay Rosen’s Master Narratives article, which I’ve read three times already as I try to wrap my mind around its implications. (Again, link via the Scobleizer.)