If you’ve heard of blogs–and given that you’re reading this site, chances are that you have–you’re probably also familiar with the term “blogosphere.” It is used to describe the worldwide community of blogs and bloggers, and it is derived from the Greek term “logosphere” (which can be roughly translated as the realm of discourse). Most blogs usually have links to other, similar blogs of interest, and bloggers often form a tight-knit online community, commenting on one another’s posts, or sometimes co-editing different blogs.

The blogosphere as a concept has entered the mainstream discourse and is often mentioned in the mainstream media, i.e. television, radio, newspapers. In fact, professional blogging has become so ubiquitous in the field of journalism and investigative reporting that there is often a close connection between the news you can see on your cable TV, and the material you can find out in the blogosphere. This relationship goes both ways: many bloggers have become guests on talk shows and are mentioned in news reports, and conversely, many “traditional” newscasters have started their own news or personal blogs.

The blogosphere also has a critical aspect in terms of the mainstream media, and sometimes it is bloggers who correct or debunk erroneous or outright false news stories that might be presented on television news programs or printed in traditional newspapers. A prominent example of this is the so-called “Rathergate” affair, when bloggers discovered that famous news anchor Dan Rather had based his reporting of George W. Bush’s military service record on false documents.

The blogosphere also includes specialized blog search engines and blog rating systems, such as Technorati, which help connect blogs with their readers and rate them according to traffic and relevance.