In The Mirror and the Veil: An Overview of American Online Diaries and Blogs, Vivian Serfaty describes two approaches to analyzing online journals/diaries: 1) as literary sources (literary studies), and 2) as primary sources (social sciences). The literary approach views online diaries as a creation of a fictional self, of a fictional identity, no matter how true-to-life the text may be (Serfaty 10, citing Anderson 2001: 17). The social science approach views them as primary sources and believes that ethics require asking permission of the author in order to study the work (Serfaty 10, citing Ess 2002). Serfaty also discusses the problems inherent with participant observation, especially when dealing with very private writing, and the necessity of devising a way to deal with bias (11).
Serfaty translates and quotes Philipe Lejeune:
Reading diaries, or interviewing diarists: in a perfect world, you could do both. The issue, however, is tricky. Reading the diary of a living person even as it is being kept, while simultaneously maintaining a relationship with the diarist, is closer to an intimate pact than to a specific approach. No one ought to be encouraged to undertake such an adventure. Analyzing an interview is perilous enough as it is, even under a pseudonym. Dissecing a diary is even more dangerous” (Lejeune 1998: 174, qtd in Serfaty 11).
Serfaty decides that because the diaries are published online, she can treat them as published literary texts, not private texts, that are “public acts deliberatively intended for public consumption” (12, qting Paccagnella 1997).
Serfaty, Viviane. The Mirror and the Veil: An Overview of American Online Diaries and Blogs. Amsterdam Monographs in American Studies, vol. 11. Series eds. Rob Kroes. New York: Rodopi, 2004.
