Abstract

This thesis investigates the role of Canadian weblogs or blogs (personal, chronological records of thoughts published on a web page) and the blogosphere (the online community of blogs) in discourse concerning Western representations of "Africa." It examines potential relationships between concepts of international integration that animate much of the discussion of the World Wide Web, and the concept of foreign aid at the level of the individual volunteer. This thesis also seeks to contextualize the writing within wider narratives of travel and tourism, and questions whether or not foreign aid discourse within the blogosphere can be used as a site for investigating the intersection between issues of social justice and new media technologies for expanding notions of volunteerism, international inter-responsibility and global citizenship.