Weblogs, warblogs, the public sphere, and bubbles

Abstract

During the past two years, weblogs have come to the attention of the public via mass media as a rhetorical form between private and public. The ease with which weblogs are created and maintained extends the Internet’s potential for democraticised access; recent news events in the US, specifically the brief scandal surrounding US Senator Lott and the war against Iraq, have provided a sense of weblogs’ capability to influence discussion of events in a virtual public sphere. However, the large numbers and openly ideological quality of weblogs tend to limit their audiences to those who agree with their points of view, keeping writers and readers in bubble-like isolation from opposing perspectives.