While digital poetry and fiction remain marginal genres primarily of interest to scholars of digital textuality, millions of readers are exploring blogs and other social networking forms or forums. But do they represent new genres, collections or archives, or social spaces? This article maintains that like the commonplace books that were popular with Renaissance readers, blogs and related social networking forms are types of “archival genres.” Understood as collections, systems of information management, and social spaces, archival genres not only reflect archival practices (collecting and ordering) but also represent spaces of enunciation where new genres develop.
Eichhorn, Kate. "Archival Genres: Gathering Texts and Reading Spaces." Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Studies. Issue 12, May 2008. Visual & Cultural Studies Program, University of Rochester.