Diablogging about asylum seekers

Using Wetherell and Potter’s seminal analysis of the rhetoric of racism, this paper argues that blogs are sites where racism is both expressed and contested. Despite Mapping the Language of Racism being two decades old this year, the discursive repertoires used by the New Zealand middle class in interviews about issues to do with indigenous Maori appear as relevant as ever among Australians blogging about the current bug-bear of contemporary racism, asylum seekers, and arise in similar patterns in online discussions.  This paper tracks the ways the discourses are reproduced but also the ways they are challenged by bloggers attempting to change these views. Discursive analysis reveals the ways blog interactional structures limit the ability of researchers to determine whether the dialogue actually changes peoples’ opinions. However, the potential of blogs to work as a Habermasian ‘public square’ is argued for.