Muslim Bloggers in Germany: Creating a Counter-public to Traditional Media
Rukiye Dogan blogs sporadically. Initially, she just wrote about the things she saw in her daily life, observed in the world around her, or discovered by chance. “There are so many stories on the streets; you just have to write them down,” says the young blogger. But as time passed, the “stories from the street” on her blog were supplemented by a growing number of posts on other subjects.
Of late, Rukiye Dogan has been shifting her focus to the political. Some things, she says, are just crying out to be blogged about. One such a thing, for example, was a programme on German television hosted by the famous German TV personality, Günther Jauch. The theme of the talk show, which was broadcast in spring 2013 on ARD, Germany’s first public, national broadcaster, was “In Allah’s name: what can be done to counteract Germany’s holy warriors?”
Rukiye felt that she just had to comment on the guests, their discussions, and what she considered to be Jauch’s disastrous hosting of the show. So she sat down and wrote a letter to the editorial team behind the show. Instead of printing and sending it, however, she posted it on her blog.