Italicising blog references

Did you know that, when APA referencing, we were supposed to italicise the blog title? I had always assume that we indicate, with italics, the 'title' of the source. However, having consulted the APA gods, it is the blog's title which we italicise. The American Psychological Association (2019, p. 321) provides the example in the image accompanying this post. I was thinking about this earlier this year, and was wondering if the italicising was a hangover from when blogs used to be a 'thing' on their own, back in the days when hosting a website cost >$100/month.

Way back in the 1990s, my original website hosting was quoted by New Zealand's main telecommunications company (what am I saying? The US telecoms companies who owned New Zealand's telecommunications - AT&T and Bell Atlantic) back in the day at $1200/year plus GST. Ouch. I couldn't afford to pay that in a fledgling new business, alongside site development, as well as the software to run the site's back office stuff. However, within a year or so the cost dropped to $600/year, which I could afford. And then I had to learn html and to purchase Microsoft FrontPage - which was then the software to code, manage, back up and upload my static site. I had a lot to get my head around.

Even better, my old website from the early 2000s was truly awful! Crikey: revisiting that was a walk down memory lane. It also shows how different static websites are from the more dynamic versions. I took a look at it using the Internet Archive's "Way Back Machine": https://web.archive.org/; a fascinating place to go for a retrospective tour of old sites! 

Returning to blog name italicising, many sites today are an intersection between websites and blogs, leaving me a bit ambivalent about whether we should italicise the title of the page, or the site name. I have a growing sense of inconsistency: that the news items are an element of the entire site. Blog posts are no longer true "blogs" alone. Because of this increasing blend of blog and website, I am unconvinced that a blog should now be treated any differently to a website. I feel we should italicise the page or post title, as it is usually a 'thing' in its own right.

I think it is time that the APA team had a rethink on this one.

Sam

References:

American Psychological Association. (2019). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.). Author.

Internet Archive. (2024). Way Back Machine. https://web.archive.org/