Fareed Zakaria discusses mediation and blogging in a fascinating way in the conclusion of his book The Future of Freedom (W W Norton and Company, 2003).

"The personal web site (blog) was hailed as the killer of the traditional media. In fact it has become something quite different. Far from replacing newspapers and magazines, the best blogs--and the best are very clever--have become guides to them, pointing out unusual sources and commenting on familiar ones. They have become new mediators for the informed public...the creators of blogs think of themselves as radical democrats, the are in fact a new Tocquevillean elite" (254).