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IT IS a conventional wisdom that citizen journalism, blogging, interactivity and other new forms of communication are changing our communications media, and by extension our democracies, in radical and, it is implied, positive ways. But I wonder whether those who eulogise these developments ever take a close look at the content of some of these allegedly shimmering new elements of the democratic discourse.

Let’s take a random example from the online edition of last Sunday’s Observer newspaper – an article which, as is becoming mandatory, opened up at the end to “posts” from readers.