Thoroughly revised and updated, this new edition of Blogging provides an accessible study of a now everyday phenomenon and places it in a historical, theoretical and contemporary context. The second edition takes into account the most recent research and developments and provides current analyses of new tools for microblogging and visual blogging.

Jill Walker Rettberg discusses the ways blogs are integrated into today’s mainstream social media ecology, where comments and links from Twitter and Facebook may be more important than the network between blogs that was significant five years ago, and questions the shift towards increased commercialization and corporate control of blogs. The new edition also analyses how smart phones with cameras and social media have led a shift towards more visual emphasis in blogs, with photographs and graphics increasingly foregrounded.

Reviews

“A solid, unbiased, and unfettered introduction to the social aspects of blogging.”

N.D. Bowman for CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries (2nd ed.)

“The book combines an intelligent theoretical and critical attitude and builds on a qualitative analysis of different examples of blogs and stories of bloggers.”

Elena Maceviciute in Information Research (2nd ed.)

“The writing style is a strength of this book. The author’s 8 years of practicing blogging is evident in the breezy, matter-of-fact manner in which she maps her subject matter. (..) It is accessible to undergrads, the conceptual depth makes it appropriate for graduate-level courses, and there are insights here that should spur ideas for future research.”

Wilson Lowrey in Mass Communication and Society   (1st ed.)

“Rettberg provides a compelling and accessible look into blogging. Through compiling the existing literature and providing detailed examples of her key arguments Rettberg offers a comprehensive overview of blogging that contextualizes it historically and chronicles the evolution of the medium and its attendant practices over the last decade. Rettberg also advances the scholarly conversation on a number of fronts, adding to our understanding of the contemporary public sphere, the interaction between citizen and professional journalism, and online communicative and social networking practices. Students of networked communication and collaboration will find this text a useful guide to the literature and a contribution to theories of blogging and the public sphere, while practitioners will discover a number of useful resources.”

Daniel Kreiss in Journal of Communication (1st ed.)