I’ve shifted a little on my position about the ability of weblogging to generate a meaningful community beyond moral support.
Just one example close to home (well, not so physically close to home because it’s on the other side of the country from me): I noticed on my son b!X’s site that he periodically gets both donations and other contributions from his readers (which is great because he’s usually unemployed). Of course, his weblog is geared toward supporting citizen involvement in an actual, real-world community But the fact that his blog readers see his contribution to the real-world community worthy of reciprocation extends his personally supportive community.
And Elayne Riggs’ comment on my post below reminds me of the value of the blogging community for networking purposes, especially employment. As a matter of fact, in the near future I’m going to see if any of my Boston-based blogger friends might be able to help a former student of ex-husband’s find another job in the area.
We need lots of different kinds of communities in our lives. Blogging surely fills some of those needs.