Interactive online journals and individualization

Suggestions that the internet has facilitated existing trends towards the increasing disconnection of individuals from substantive communities have been balanced by a variety of empirical case studies demonstrating significant communal features on some online discussion forums. While recognizing the role of discussion forums in facilitating community, this article seeks to shift the focus of debate towards the rapidly increasing use of online journal style web logs (`blogs') as a form of social interaction. Ostensibly centred upon the individual rather than the group, yet increasingly interactive and socially oriented, interactive online journals appear particularly consistent with the notion of individualistic rather than group-centred patterns of sociability. The article explores this possibility in relation to case study research focused on the recent take-up of online journals by a group of individuals who previously participated in discussion forums associated with a music and fashion subculture known as the `goth' scene.