Bloggers seem to carry more and more weight these days – it’s quite an interesting phenomenon really. I as just reading this article about the Hobbit, where I saw Peter Jackson mention the influence of the so-called blogsphere: ” There is a huge audience waiting to see ‘The Hobbit,’ and any positive press from Comic-Con will truthfully have little impact on that. However, as we saw at CinemaCon earlier this year, with our 48 frames per second presentation, negative bloggers are the ones the mainstream press runs with and quotes from.” Reading that, it suddenly struck me how much power bloggers now hold. Writers have always held power, of course, but historically that was an art form reserved for a select few with publishers and editors acting as gatekeepers. These days, anyone can write and have their musings read by a potentially vast audience.

Yet I don’t think this has brought about the democratic parity you might think: not all blogs are equal. A few blogs have risen to the top, and their authors have become very influential, reaching vast audiences. Below them are a vast amount of blogs written by guys like me, harping on about anything that interests them; they usually have their own domains, and moderate readership (mind you, apart from my immediate family and maybe a few friends, I have no idea who reads my entries.) They are also written by people who call themselves bloggers..

Lowest in the blogsphere hierarchy are guys who write stuff on things like Livejournal or Blogspot. I don’t think they should be called blogs as that connotes a specific personal site. While no doubt some of the writing on those can be brilliant, most constitute the inane rantings of hormonal adolescents. There are too many of them for any one to stand out, so I tend to see them as a mass of irrelevant drivel. They usually aren’t updated frequently, aren’t written by people who call themselves bloggers – ie writers who specifically intend to impart their world view to others – and so I don’t think should be taken as seriously as other blogs.

But that’s only my view. I suppose I am spoiled by having my own domain. Yet I do think there’s a certain blogging hierarchy which is part of web culture, and that interests me as a student of culture in general. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to note how much power the blogsphere now holds, and especially the new type of miniblogging on twitter.