The Culture of Fatherhood 2.0: Exploring the “Tiny Public” of Dad Bloggers in North America

This article presents a cyber-ethnographic study of a community of North American men who write parenting blogs—known as “dad bloggers.” Informed by sociological and feminist media studies literature on parenting culture and digital public spheres, dad bloggers are examined as a social group who are collectively responding and contributing to contemporary cultural models of fatherhood. Drawing on data from fieldwork observations, blog posts, and interviews, the findings demonstrate how dad bloggers are developing their community and group “idioculture,” reframing how fatherhood is represented in the media, and engaging in advocacy and activism for issues surrounding family, work, and gender. It is argued that dad bloggers in North America constitute a “tiny public” who are constructing their own culture of fatherhood 2.0.