Creation and validation of the personal blogging style scale.

A review of blog literature suggests that blogs may have many social and emotional benefits. In particular, there is the suggestion that blogging may have benefits in the forms of coping, insight and growth, catharsis, as a free space to communicate, through feedback, through recognition, and in social support. However, while there have been numerous studies on the potential motivations for and effects of blogging, little quantitative research has been conducted on defining the manner in which one experiences blogging. Thus rather than focusing on motivation for blogging, the present study examined the way in which bloggers perceived and experienced their activity, that is, their blogging style. A 16-item Personal Blogging Style Scale (PBSS) was created after a factor analysis of 25 sample items. Participants were 182 experienced bloggers. The PBSS classifies user experiences by four independent and unique subscales: Therapeutic Blogging, Self-Censoring Blogging, Connected Blogging, and Substitution Blogging. Reliability and validity evidence were presented for the subscales of the measure.