The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, 7 Volume Set

18

Blogging the Third Wave?

Citizens' Media, Intimate Citizenship, and Everyday Life

Jenny Gunnarsson Payne

ABSTRACT

This essay seeks to address whether blogging can serve as a feminist tool, particularly as a form of practicing citizenship. More specifically, it asks whether feminist blogging contributes only to individualized forms of expression (based on the empowerment of single individuals) or whether blogging has a role in both the construction and endurance of collectivist forms of feminist politics. This essay begins by situating feminist blogging in a larger historical context of media production in the feminist movement. It then presents three different feminist blog projects in order to investigate the various ways in which these blogs practice what in recent literature is discussed in terms of “intimate citizenship.”

Is the blog a tool for young girls to take over an increasing part of public space? Is there a democratic and feminist potential in the increasing blogging phenomenon, or are blogs just another forum where young girls show themselves and others by way of a narrow representation of The Perfect Girl? What does girls' domination of the blog world tell us about our society – and what type of reactions do they provoke?¹

(http://www.hogkvarteret.se/)

The questions raised in the epigraph above were circulated as publicity for a panel debate entitled “The Blog – Young Girls' Way to Power?” that was held in April 2010 at the queer feminist club Högkvarteret in ...