Introduction

Advances in digital technology have irrevocably changed the media landscape. No longer is the production of media messages limited to those with printing presses and broadcast stations (Jenkins, 2006: 258). With the advent of the Internet, and increasingly user-friendly and multi-functional media devices such as mobile phones, palm tops and laptops, individuals can access and distribute information more readily than ever before. These changing practices have caused a shift in the flow of information between media producers and consumers, challenging the established one-to-many media model with a more multilateral one (Grabowitz, 2003: 75).

The weblog, or, blog is a significant site in the reconfiguration of the media landscape. Two dimensions of a blog so significant to information exchange are that they enable individuals to post images, video and text on a global medium, and that they invite readers to post comments. Contrary to the static structure of the top down model, blogs engender media production and participation. In this way blogs can become a platform in which ideas and opinion feed off each other in dynamic exchanges.


As a cultural practice, blogging is gaining momentum. It emerged in the early 1990’s from a conjunction between personal web-pages, e-mail lists and online forums. In 1999 blogging established itself as an Internet phenomenon when a free build-your-own-weblog tool was launched (Blood, 2000). Since then, further software advances and the continuing appropriation of blogs by consumers and producers alike have seen them attain a significant presence on the Internet, with rough estimates sitting at 100 million blogs worldwide (Lovink, 2007: 1).