Blogs as an aspect of digital culture?

Blogs generally treated as a part of popular culture or some sort of folk journalism but lacks research in the fields of digital culture and journalism.

Theoretical approaches suggested by Jill Waker:
Media theory
Rhetoric
Reader response theory
Hypertext theory

This has to start somewhere...

These are some of my wandering thoughts at the moment:

Blogs & Journalism – Democratic public sphere
- How does one affect the other?
- What are the conflicts?
- How does blog contribute to journalism?
- Constrains and potentials?

• New media theory – Online Journalism. Discuss the power structure of new-media environment with focus on blog.


• “Convergence Culture maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways.”


• What are the new patterns of online-media consumption and production?


• Habemas and related on public sphere. How can blog be considered an answer to the assumed lack of public sphere and strengthen democracy? What are the obstacles?


• Blog publishing – A re-mediation? Some form of blogs can be seen as a remix that recycles and reproduce thoughts, culture, politics and media


• Blogs as a participation medium? Participatory Journalism?


• Credibility? How does blogging affect media credibility?


• Blog vs. traditional media:
  Publish then filter vs. Filter then publish?