What persuades individuals to write blogs, upload videos on YouTube and put their music on Myspace?

We need to put the Web in its sociological context, where one of its key roles is to enable individuals to express themselves. Indeed, self-expression has become a constituent element of personal identity-building in today’s globalized society. This period of more reflective individualism about who we want to be is linked to the process of de-composing the traditional institutions of identity-building, such as family, workplace, etc. Personal and societal identities are no longer formed naturally, nor are they reproduced blindly. They are now the result of an expressive effort by means of which an individual sketches the outlines of his/her biography and personal affinities, thus creating a certain identity. It is this dimension of “expressive individualism” that is both observable through the Internet and defined by it and which is offered to contemporaries as an intimate social-identity laboratory.

	How do you explain the success of the sites and blogs that put the spotlight on the individual?

Whatever the content of a blog, be it in the realm of private or public matters, I do not think it can be reduced to a personal diary, as has been done so often. The most innovative aspect of a blog does not reside in what can be seen on the pages, but rather in the technical ability to circulate messages across the RSS* feed. From a technical point of view, the pages of a blog make up a dynamic description file that can be exported outside the blog itself. That includes subscribing to blogs, for example, and therefore following the progression of the pages thanks to different RSS readers. It also includes posting pages from other people on one’s blog, be it a skyblog or wordpress, or podcasting music or videos. In short, the “textual fabric” of a blog is entirely heterogeneous, a mixture of personal observations and productions made by others.

This is why it is perhaps more appropriate to talk about a “public diary.” While the private diaries were a prime vehicle of the conquest of one’s introspection in the 18th century, today’s blog is, in contrast, thevehicle of experimenting in ways of linking with other people.

	How have interpersonal relations changed since the advent of social network sites on the Internet?

If we assume that the Internet is the laboratory of a vast societal movement where individuals find themselves in a realm of distantiation, exploration and identity-play, then the Internet cannot be considered as a realm per se, closed to the outside. Clearly, it is linked to other stages of life–society, family, work, intimacy, etc. It is an additional realm but with its own specifics.

As far as human relations are concerned, those who subscribe to a blog and weave original social links, are adhering to a certain subjectivity, to particular tastes and opinions. They are voluntary elective links, albeit temporary, that contrast with traditional social roles.

This process of social aggregation through blogs, forums and social network sites does not change relations themselves. It is simply a manifestation of social changes in terms of expressive individualism. So the Internet is not a space itself, but rather an additional stage; it is not closed to the outside, but  porous, and will become more so as the mobile Web expands. The convergence of mobile and Internet cultures combines street theatre and a networking space that are mutually enriching.

	Do you think this phenomenon will last, or is it a passing fad?

Put in context, this “expressive individualism” is certainly not a “flavour of the month.” It represents a genuine social conquest–the conquest of the power to say what you think, to do your own thing. It is a change in outlook that I call the “expressivist paradigm” in the understanding of culture as well as contemporary politics. For today’s “digital generation,” speaking out, editing television images, and creating one’s own video games are daily cultural acts. They are cause for optimism, since they create a more committed and more creative attitude towards the culture of the period. The path is not pre-determined, but the new generation has the tools for cultural production in its grasp, and that offers hope for a more active citizenship. When one has become accustomed to expressing one’s tastes and opinions, to creating action and work groups, such “bad habits” are not likely to give way to political or economic censorship.

	How do the Internet, mobile telephony and other such tools help to boost or re-energize artistic creativity?

In this expressive age, artistic creation is not the prerogative of a few recognized authors, which is why the very notion of creation as something that has an almost sacred value is no longer adequate to qualify everyday aesthetic actions such as transmitting photos or videos from a mobile phone or making mobile compositions of sound, text and images. As proof, observe the more traditional temples of artistic dedication which are now homing in on these productions and practices. For example, the Pocket Film Festival organized by the “Forum des Images” and SFR, a major French mobile telephony operator. Such encounters structure the emerging sphere of creative industries–that is, what remains of the old cultural industries coupled with the new drivers of digital and mobile culture production, fertilized by expressivism and ordinary creativity.