The Blogging Revolution by Anthony Loewenstein is a colorful account of bloggers all around the globe who live and write under repressed regimes - many of them face death doing so. The Blogging Revolution is an amazing examination about the nature of repression in the 20th century and the powerful brave individuals who overcome it. These individuals are part of the public sphere.
For Habermas (1989), the function of the media have thus been transformed from facilitating rational discourse and debate within the public sphere into shaping, constructing, and limiting public discourse to those themes validated and approved by media corporations. Hence, the interconnection between a sphere of public debate and individual participation has been fractured and transmuted into that of a realm of political information and spectacle, in which citizen consumers ingest and absorb passively entertainment and information.
According to Loewenstein (2008), the internet has become the only space for many citizens to express their hopes, fears and desires and a refuge for dissent on many issues, including women’s views and discussions on sex, drugs, gender, politics and religion.
Loewenstein has travelled widely in the process of writing this book and has written it as a result of his firsthand investigations with private parties, some of which risked their lives in order to share their views on their country’s rulers and their opinions on western democracy.
These parties included writers, bloggers, dissidents and journalists – from politicians and citizens in Iran and Egypt to people writing from internet cafes in Saudi Arabia and Damascus.
One of the book’s most eye-opening discoveries is the way the internet is threatening the traditional role of governments.
The book arose out of Loewenstein’s frustration that so much of the western media was ignoring the voices of the non-western world, as if, he says “indigenous voices didn’t deserve to be heard”.
References
1. Habermas, J., 1989, The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Articke, Bronner and Kellner, pg 136-142.
2. Loewenstein, A., 2008, The Blogging Revolution, viewed on 10th November 2009,
http://www.bloggingrevolution.com/
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