The latest report from the Committee to Protect Journalists makes depressing, if anticipated reading: bloggers are being hunted down and jailed in many countries, most numerously in Burma, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan, and Egypt.
The practice of blogging has become so widespread now that academics are researching it, policymakers are deliberating about it, businesses are salivating at its revenue potential, and even cops are being assigned to hunt down its practitioners. And as the net tightens in Burma, Iran and Syria and those others, it also tightens closer to home, especially in Fiji but also in apparently benign democracies such as Malaysia.
University of Queensland PhD student Abdul Latiff Ahmad has been monitoring the blogosphere in his home country of Malaysia and he says there have been controversial cases involving bloggers there over the years.
'Prominent political bloggers have been charged under the Sedition Act and their cases are still being trialed in court. Religious issues are also debated in blogs, as is sexual content.'
But it's not all bad news. Mr Ahmad says the number of blogs in Malaysia has been growing and more bloggers have been gaining prominence.
'There has been a strong shift of attitude towards bloggers especially with the general election in March last year. The government found the need to establish good relations with bloggers, and ministers in the government have also established their own blogs to get closer to the people.
'There is a television show on the public broadcasting channel, RTM1, called Blog@1, which invites bloggers to talk about current issues and share their blogging experience. At the same time, ex-journalists have started their own blogs. 'The latest and most prominent person to join the blogosphere is Malaysia's ex-Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Muhammad, whose blog currently has more than 18 million visitors.'
Researcher and author Stuart Allan, in his book Online News notes that bloggers and their ilk have the potential to 'alter the dynamics of public debate', firstly by removing the established role of news gatekeeper and secondly by becoming so influential that 'reporters are beginning every day by reading the blogs'.
Perhaps because of this, there is another aspect to the issue which deserves a look: bloggers haven't been popular among journalists either.
Many journalists — especially the rightfully disgruntled ones among the thousands laid off from newspapers here and in the