This dissertation uses content analysis to examine how African Americans utilize blogs to create virtual “third place” communities (as described by Oldenburg), as a means to rebuild aspects of community that are lacking in their “real-world” communities in regards to HIV/AIDS discussion and emotional support. The need for this new source of communal support arose from the silence and inactions of traditional black institutions as it pertained to crisis. The analysis focuses on discussion threads in which individuals in an African-American blogging community, Black America Web (BAW) (www.blackamericaweb.com), respond to HIV/AIDS articles/commentary online. The research addresses a basic question: How, and if so why, does the Weblog under study exhibit characteristics of “third places” as conceptualized by Oldenburg (1999)? The research lends credence to the belief that the importance of studying technology lies in the uniqueness of the social interactions the internet inspires, and not strictly for its technological attributes. Blogs were chosen because they represent a single virtual place, outside of large social gatherings, where people can engage in real time conversations on a grand scale, and unlike their physical counterparts, users are empowered by the relative cloak of anonymity afforded by the internet. Never before has a medium such as Information Communicative Technology (ICT) existed that can connect and enable conversations from members representing all classes of the geographically dispersed, cultural and ethnic community, with potentially everyone being able to contribute to the discussion and be heard.

Keywords. HIV/AIDS, blogs, community, third place, social support, content analysis, African-American