Public and Private Diaries

This article analyzes a number of Egyptian blogs in relation to their print ancestors, in particular private notebooks written by young effendis in the 1920s and public fictional diaries serialized in the periodical press in the same period in Egypt. It compares the media transition taking place in Egypt in the early 2000s following the adoption of blogging and social media to the one occurring in the early decades of the twentieth century following the popularization of printed products. Using theories from media studies and rhetorical studies, it shows how the blog inherits some of the formal and stylistic features of private diaries as well as their anti-authoritarian attitude. Yet it also shows how compared to its ancestors, the blog favors an unprecedented exposure of personal, private issues in public, turning self-writing into a social, communicative activity. Similarly, autofiction and subversive styles of writing are techniques that bloggers borrow from the fictional print diaries in order to write about their private lives in public. However, digital tools, with their mode of circulation, temporality and increasing exposure to state and informal censorship, make it increasingly difficult for bloggers to keep a room of their own.