Weblogs: nodes of participation in a global context? Non-expert publishing in many languages

Although the English word weblog is known in other languages, this has not prevented translations to appear. In Spanish, for example, weblog in general has apparently been translated using the journal-style kind of definition. In effect, in Spanish, weblogs are more commonly referred to as bitácoras, even though the word weblogs is well known. The word bitácora refers in the first place to the journals kept by captains of the old vessels that sailed across oceans, for example the ones used by Spaniards and Portuguese to arrive to the American continent in 1500. A bitácora is clearly different form a personal diary or diario íntimo in Spanish because it implies a trip. It is the account of events that happen during a long journey or physical movement from one place to another. This metaphor of movement in the Spanish language does not exist as clearly in English. Nevertheless, the word journal is used to call those weblogs that have a more personal or intimate tone. —Virginia Melián —Weblogs: nodes of participation in a global context? Non-expert publishing in many languagesDigital Divide and the Media: Challenges for Communication and Democracy)

This seems to be a paper delivered at a conference called Digital Divide and the Media: Challenges for Communication and Democracy.

I really hate PDFs… using Firefox, I can’t copy and paste more than one line at a time from the HTML document that Google generated from the PDF original, so the process of posting an excerpt from a PDF is a royal pain.