I quote the abstract:

The rise of the blogosphere raises important questions about the elicitation and aggregation of information, and about democracy itself. Do blogs allow people to check information and correct errors? Can we understand the blogosphere as operating as a kind of marketplace for information along Hayekian terms? Or is it a vast public meeting of the kind that Jurgen Habermas describes? In this article, I argue that the blogosphere cannot be understood as a Hayekian means for gathering dispersed knowledge because it lacks any equivalent of the price system. I also argue that forces of polarization characterize the blogosphere as they do other social interactions, making it an unlikely venue for Habermasian deliberation, and perhaps leading to the creation of information cocoons. I conclude by briefly canvassing partial responses to the problem of polarization.

The argument about Hayek’s information markets is simple and easily understandable. The blogosphere has no market pricing mechanisms or anything like it, thus there is no market-like aggregation of information. I can easily accept that argument. The argument against a Habermasian public sphere is about group polarization. Conservative bloggers read conservative blogs and become more conservative as a consequence. The same is supposedly the case for other groups. Does this correspond with perceived reality? I’m not quite sure what to think. I lean clearly to the left in what I read, but I do read and cite quite a bit of right-oriented material too I think. What about you? Do bloggers get drawn to writing about blogs with the same views as themselves? Does this mean we really have a blogosphere with little real discussion? I need to think on this a little.

1. Sunstein, Cass R. (2007) “Neither Hayek nor Habermas” Public Choice 134(1-2), Springer Netherlands, pp. 87-95. Available online in fulltext through SpringerLink for those with acess: http://www.springerlink.com/content/b8167107l4662l47/