African Caribbean Bloggers in the UK and Alternative Voices on the Web

Project Focus

This is a critical study on blogging positioned within the field of alternative media and broader disciplines of media and cultural studies. The growth of the internet and expansion of ICTs has created new publishing spaces on the web that offer a fast and low-cost route to media production and a moderate learning curve in terms of technical knowledge and expertise. Blogging is part of a complex media system where audiences are also content producers.

This research project will focus on African Caribbean people in the UK who create and maintain blogs. It is an exploratory study that seeks to understand the motivations for blogging, use of blogs and gratification obtained from authoring them. Blogs may function as a form of personal expression, as a means of sharing information or can sometimes be journalistic in nature, offering fresh information or commentary on existing stories in the mainstream media. Particular attention will be paid to the use of blogs as a strategy to address issues of representation within the mainstream media.

Research Methods

This project will employ a mixed methods approach that includes a questionnaire, in-depth interviews and discourse analysis.

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