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Abstract
This paper critically examines the rising popularity of blogging in the US as a new kind of public space that has the potential to extend and deepen the way in which we interact and engage each other in political discourse. To proponents of deliberative democracy these moves are promising since they seem to point to the development of vibrant online public forums where political issues can be freely and openly debated. In this paper I evaluate this promise and ask whether or not blogging is consistent with the main theoretical tenets of deliberative democracy. My argument is that, despite some shortcomings, there is significant potential for the blogosphere to develop into a meaningful deliberative community.
Notes
1. http://technorati.com/about/; http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/map-welcome-to-the-blogosphere.
2. Lenhart and Fox (Citation2006). Also see BIGresearch's January 2008 Simultaneous Media Survey (SIMM 11) at: http://www.bigresearch.com/samples/big-simm11-bloggers.pdf.
3. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/130/press_release.asp. Also see BIGresearch's ‘Bloggers Profile’ at http://www.pewinternet.org/Commentary/2008/July/New-numbers-for-blogging-and-blog-readership.aspx.
5. See Salam Pax's now defunct blog, ‘Where Is Raed?’ at: http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/.
10. Also see Agre (Citation2002).
11. I would like to thank an anonymous referee for helping me to have a deeper understanding of this issue.
12. See Maynor (Citation2003), especially chapter 3.
13. For an interesting take on online polling compared to more traditional polls see Pollster.com's blog, at: http://www.pollster.com/mystery_pollster/numbers_guy_rating_the_pollste.php.
14. See Sunstein (Citation2007b); Spears et al. (Citation1990); and Abrams et al. (Citation1990).
18. Of course these statistics only reflect the current situation in the US. Some point out that internet access in industrialized countries is atypical, and that there is an entrenched global digital divide. See the International Telecommunications Union report at http://www.itu.int/wsis/tunis/newsroom/stats/.
19. See BIGresearch's ‘Bloggers Profile’ at: http://www.bigresearch.com/samples/big-simm11-bloggers.pdf.
20. See Graf (Citation2006) and Lenhard and Fox (Citation2006).
21. I would like to thank an anonymous referee for bringing this issue to my attention.
22. For example, posts like the following are commonplace in the blogosphere: ‘I'm not calling Broder inept, I'm calling him a fucking asshole and a bought‐and‐sold media whore. I wish I could find a more uncivil way to express that but for now I'll have to just settle for this relatively civil version … Fuck you David Broder you useless senile old fogey.’ Posted by: Cause Disturbance. Date: 25 April 2007 07:06 PM, http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/04/broder_to_compa.php.
28. For more on this see McKinnon (Citation2000, pp. 144–164).
29. It is important to differentiate between different levels of anonymous posting on blog sites. Many bloggers have a pseudonym that they use regularly that clearly identifies them as themselves and is even sometimes linked to a more formal bio page. This kind of anonymity is contrasted with others who use temporary user names to post inflammatory or offensive comments, often to get around a site's terms of service.
30. For a sample of reactions on both the right and left see http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/15/12438/9170 and http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2007/04/a_blogger_code_of_conduct_no_t.php?comments=show.
32. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/186/report_display.asp. See http://rawstory.com; http://drudgereport.com; http://powerlineblog.com; http://huffingtonpost.com; and http://crooksandliars.com.
33. For two examples see http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Blogs_accuse_CNN_reporter_of_disrupting_0404.html and http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1670210,00.html.
34. http://wikipedia.com. For critiques of Wikipedia see Waldman (Citation2004); Ahrens (Citation2006); and Sunstein (Citation2007a).