Intertextuality and the blogosphere: an analysis of forms and functions of intertextuality in the human rights blogs
This paper addresses the forms and functions of intertextuality in the academic blogs offering critical analyses of the European Court of Human Rights’ legal reasoning. More specifically, the analysis of entries published in three law blogs (ECHR Blog, Strasbourg Observers, EJIL: TALK!) has been conducted with the aim of answering the following research questions: a) what types of intertextual representations occur in the analysed blog posts? b) how do the new media affordances affect intertextual representations? c) in what ways identified intertextual practices contribute to achieving the blogs’ communicative purposes? The study has shown that that the analyzed blog posts are highly intertextual, which results from combining well-established forms of intertextuality (e.g., summary, direct quotation, mentioning, comment or evaluation) (Bazerman, 2004) with novel forms exhibiting technical affordances of the digital medium (e.g., hyperlinks, videos, pictures). Furthermore, the functional analysis of intertextuality has revealed that it contributes to providing a context based on which the authors of the blog posts present their arguments. In addition, identified intertextual practices help the bloggers to create their online identity as competent members of scholarly legal community, promote their research and build relations with a diversified audience.
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