I am hesitating to finish the piece because I'm not particularly keen to add to the navel-gazing wordage that abounds in our wee world, but I do feel I'd like to add something to the debate. Outside the Academy, Outside the Media, as a title, gives the flavour of what I'd like to say: blogs allow for (actually are) an independent space where conversations, often only seen in/around universities, can take place in an considered way, at our own pace, about what literature is, about what we want from it, about what we as (critical) readers can bring to it. They do this (create and participate in this conversation) outside of institutional constraints. My concern is that new constraints arrive if blogs see themselves as a replacement for the print media. The print media is often little more than a sales catalogue: critical engagement is downplayed; new books and new writers are overly praised for work that, on reading, is banal and underwhelming. The blogosphere is already a hugely varied place, and a daily changing landscape, but I fear that this desire I percieve for recognition by the real/old/print media could dilute what is different and powerful and energising about blogs in the first place.
Posted by tellio | 
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