Bloggning.se : - en studie av den svenska bloggsfären utifrån Habermas offentlighetsteori -

Sammanfattning: Abstract Title Blogging.se – a study on the swedish blogosphere from a Habermasian public sphere-perspective (Bloggning.se – en studie av den svenska bloggsfären utifrån Habermas offentlighetsteori) Author Anders Larsson Aim To see whether or not weblogs (blogs) could be said to rejuvenate the public sphere, as it was first described and later re-evaluated by Jürgen Habermas. Method A quantitative analysis of 733 randomly selected swedish weblogs has been done. This analysis set out to see what different categories of bloggers (difference in f.e. gender and age) wrote about, and whether or not these subject categories could be said to play a part in constituting and/or rejuvenating a public sphere. Main results The main results of the quantitative study was that even though most blogs write about ‘private’ subjects, the most popular blogs, i.e. those who received the most comments or trackbacks, where the ones concerning society-centered subjects. Also, a significant effect of gender was discovered regarding what type of subject one tends to blog about. Women in general wrote about private matters, whereas men tended to write about society-centered subjects. This essay argues that the most important feature of the blogosphere is not that posts are written on society-centered subjects, subjects that might be considered “more important”. Instead, the focus should be on the fact that bloggers do produce media texts themselves, instead of being a passive recipient. The essay takes into account three key features of the public sphere, as described by Habermas: inclusivity, the disregard of social status and that any issue can be raised for rational debate. It is found that although the blogosphere is not without its problems, one could very well argue that it better meets these key features than the original concept of the public sphere. Length 55 pages Course Media and communication studies D Period Fall semester 2006 Tutor Lowe Hedman Keywords Weblog, Blog, Jürgen Habermas, Quantitative method, Public sphere