Glenn Reynolds notes the new book by David Kline and Dan Burstein called Blog!: How the World of Blogs And Bloggers Is Changing Our Culture. From the reviews out there, particularly in the Washington Times, it looks as thought it could be an interesting read. From the review

It is quite possible, for instance, as one of the insiders interviewed in this book observes, that the word “blog” could fall out of our vocabulary just as suddenly as it appeared. As interactivity becomes a more and more common feature of daily life, as we shift further towards a multimedia existence, “weblog” may come to be seen as a bizarrely archaic term. By the same token, newspapers could end up being driven out of business by blogs, or they might just find a way of beating them at their own game.

All we can be sure about is that we are entering a period of profound upheaval. Big business has not yet shoved the free spirits aside; media titans such as Rupert Murdoch are still trying to work out how to tame the unpredictable new beast. Everything is in flux. As the publisher, journalist and blog evangelist Jeff Jarvis puts it in his interview: “Think about it: we in the so-called cathedral of journalism have owned the printing press (and later the broadcasting tower) for centuries. Now the people own the printing press.”

The dynamic has changed. For those interested in the evolution of free speech and the devolution of modern media culture, this appears to be a good place to start. I think I’ll go ahead and get the book myself.