Online community expert, Matthew Gross, examines the potential of online
journals as both powerful and empowering tools.

What is it about blogs that make them such a powerful force for social
change?


In the simplest form, a blog (short for weblog) is nothing more than a
journal kept on the web. There are millions of such journals on the
Internet and thousands more are created every day. A blog can be about
anything, and can range in scope from a personal diary to a journal
discussing sports, politics, or international affairs.


But what makes blogs much more powerful than traditional journals and, in
fact, what makes blogs empowering is the ability that bloggers have to link
to one another to debate one another's ideas, to challenge each others
thinking, or to point out something of interest to the rest of the world.


Most forms of mass communications are broadcast communications one person
or group disseminates its ideas or content to a larger audience. Before the
Internet, mass communication was inherently hierarchical the message went
from one to many. Television, radio, and print communication was (and still
is) accessible primarily to those with the economic means to purchase
advertisements or otherwise gain access to editorial control.


Blogs break down the monopoly of broadcast communication by providing the
power of self-publishing and by removing the traditional filters that often
keep the most powerful communications tools out of the hands of ordinary
people. Using a service like Blogger (http://www.blogspot.com/), for
example, a person can create a blog for free, within minutes. The technical
and economic barriers to blogging are very low if you have access to the
Internet, and can write an email, then you have all the skills necessary to
start your own blog.


But blogs aren't just a cheap way of starting your own website, or another
way of broadcasting a message because the blogosphere is an inherently
democratic medium. Information in the blogosphere moves laterally (rather
than vertically, as it does in traditional and hierarchical forms of mass
communication). The seed of an idea, written about by one person on their
blog, can be almost instantly expanded upon by another person linking to
the original post. A third blogger might add their own personal experience
to the discussion, making the conversation richer still. A forth person may
add a comment in the comment threads. In the blogosphere, anyone can become
a participant, instantly. In fact, that participation is what the
blogosphere is all about.


Blogs, then, are a many-to-many medium. By linking to each other and
beginning conversations, bloggers create a community that crosses
geographic and national boundaries. In the blogosphere, you can start up a
discussion with someone half a world away and in doing so play a role in
helping to further the bonds between people everywhere. And when bloggers
decide to take action together when the community they've formed agrees to
use its collective power to change the world the resulting change can be
amazing. For what is stronger than people acting together in common
purpose?