The Internet has slowly shifted from an exploratory network for sharing information to a tool of commerce. Intenet sources are gaining in terms of respectability for political and other news, The Internet is becoming yet another social institution (wood & Smith, 2001) holds a potential for marginalized groups that is Still, the Internet missing i most other social institutions. Consider how journalists have long constermated over "citizen journalists, average people who post news stories. Established journalists fear this unfettered access to information because it is the job of the journalist to interpret and frame information for the masses There is a not- so-subtle elitism to journalists' concerns about citizen journalists. More impor- tantly, citizen journalists show how even an individual can still carve out a niche for communicating with others in this increasingly domesticated Internet. The Internet frontier still has opportunities and a wild side. One view of the revolution online is the development of aparallel or alterna- tive structure to the traditional news media People can post information online about news events, companies, products, or services. These messages can appear on blogs, websites, discussion boards, or any other mechanism for plac- ing ideas online. People are no longer limited by the filters or the space/time limitations of the news media. There are alternative sources of information. Public relations has gravitated toward the online environment because of these alternative sources of information Practitioners realize these alternative sources can be powerful factors when people make decisions about how they will interact with an organization. In addition to messages from the organiza- tion and the news media, people have an expanded network of "interpersonal communication" to shape interactions with an organization. We will return to concem over this expanded interpersonal communication network in the next section