Blogosphere

Due to the innovation of new technologies, the media landscape has expanded its volume and gives people the opportunity to be updated on current events, and be socially connected with friends and family.  Blogging and other social networking platforms has become some of the perks introduced by the rapid expansion of the Internet.  The blogosphere strives to provide worldwide connectivity and have become a vehicle ‘for worldwide interactions and the formation of the global Muslim Community’ (Lim 2012,p.127).  This is especially important as it gives different Indonesian Muslim subcultures the opportunity to discuss topics of mutual interest. 

Lim argues that the blogosphere has opened up a range of new communicative channels to discuss things like music, to the relevance and importance of their mutual religion.  

Blogging as I see it, is a platform in which you share your life events and are kind of admittedly like an online diary. However it has become much more than that. I believe it has become a vehicle of self-empowerment. It is giving Muslim communities in Indonesia the ability to become politically involved and to express alternative views. Lim discusses that Blogging could become a powerful tool that ‘could empower political movements that can move Muslim societies toward democratic values and governance’ (Lim 2012, p.130). However I feel there is a long way to go to enable this view to become a reality.

                                          courtesy of google images

                               

                                         courtesy of google images

I would not necessarily agree that the blogging arena in Indonesia promotes democracy, but the fact that so many important political agendas are discussed and dispersed around the blogging subculture enabling a freedom to contribute to the discussion effecting them.  I closely believe, in my opinion, that all people deserve the right to a democratic state, however some countries like Indonesia still needs to evolve and adapt to the ways of a democratic modern society. The introduction of the blogosphere is the pathway to potentially introduce democratic values and governance to Indonesia. Even though gatekeepers of the Internet in Indonesia do try to regulate the content on the Internet, it is perceived as being a liberated platform in contrast to other types of media channels. My stance on the importance of the blogosphere is indefinite. It has created a global media platform enabling people to engage in areas of mutual importance. 

 Reference list

Lim, M., 2012 ‘Life is Local in the Imagined Global Community: Islam and Politics in the Indonesian Blogosphere’, Journal of Media and Religion, vol. 11, p.127, 130)