International Blogging: Identity, Politics, and Networked Publics. Adrienne Russell and Nabil Echchaibi, eds. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2009. 205 pp.
Everybody (or so it seems) writes them and presumes that somebody beyond family and close friends just might read them. Blogs have become the most democratic of media, with their low entry costs and widespread free distribution, although our understanding of their audiences and impact is a mite constricted.
This new study approaches blogs globally, and explores the way blogging is being conceptualized across and within different countries. Russell teaches digital media studies at the University of Denver, while Echchaibi is at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
The authors of these ten papers generally pass over the most popular sites in order to shed light on larger developments, sometimes questioning assumptions that form the foundation of much of what we read about blogging, and, by extension, on global amateur or do-it-yourself media. Among the topics assessed are chapters about the case of the Bondy Blog in France, theorizing Muslim blogs, thoughts on how people use blogs in China, blogging in Russia, mapping the Australian political blogosphere, political blogging in Israel, offline politics and the blogosphere in Morocco, one year in the life of an Italian blog, and re-mediating politics with blogs in Singapore.
This anthology thus suggests a varied approach to understanding how the varied blogosphere serves communication needs in different national contexts, how blogs exist in relation to one another, where they exist apart as well as where they overlap, and how they interact with other forms of communication in the larger media landscape.
Bottom line: blogs are far more widespread than many of us think, and their impact is growing.
CHRISTOPHER H. STERLING
George Washington University