The Social Construction of Blogspace

A critical and controversial article on blogs, which brings up some interesting thoughts on the issue has been recently published in a not very readable version at rhizome … a better version can be found here. These quotes about the structural condition of blogs and the creation of space, they seemingly establish, are usually left out beside the discussed issues .. but worth some thoughts. Obvious is the linear structure based on a timeline along which blogs usually develop, eventhough they claim a multidirectional environment their own. A second point is the structure established through content as mentioned here hasn’t been much thought about yet, but definitly has impact on the architecture of space, which blogs manifest in the ‘virtual no-space’ ..
Third – this still is just published as a blogpost as an initial thread to be followed up for an eventual answer ….


Weblogs depend on structure, and a fairly rigid and hierarchal one, to function as defined, both in terms of the visual presentation of information (chronological, vertical, etc.) and as it relates to the larger space of the Internet. This spatial aspect of weblogs is beginning to be discussed in terms of a political economy that includes the cultural and economic exchange of value through links.15 The mechanisms of access are also discussed, including search engines like Google that are considered as integral to blogging as “the Otis elevator was to skyscrapers.” 16 But what of the aesthetics of management utilized by blogs? The rigid, hierarchal structure of blogs is what is said to allow for the aesthetics of immediacy within the content. What does this understanding of content and form within weblog discourse mean politically?

“The modern world has given us ways to experience the extension into space, ways that are more accessible (maybe) than older routes of mediation… Space has become obsolete.”17

I certainly don’t have any answers to my questions, just suggestions for discussion. The issue of space, where contact between subjectivity and social conventions occurs, is one that seems worth investigating. The dichotomy of form and content seen in blogs can be seen to intersect with how space is created and understood. If the form of distribution (blog tools and the Internet) creates an experience of public space as a field with no distance, then the content becomes a marker by which to recognize location. Blogs become “virtually local” within the communities they participate in.18
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