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g catalogues, academic papers and online blogs are all widely acknowledged as forms of public writing. Boeder (2005) argues that the global public sphere of today is largely influenced by the technology that underpins it.

The technological infrastructure of communication networks is influencing the social structure of society; its development is closely related to the development of social structures in a process of interchange and mutual dependence (Boeder, Networks and social structure section, para.1, 2005).

These technologies and the more recent emergence of social media networks have aided the breakdown of the boundaries between private and public that were distinct in the mid- late twentieth century.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are fostering new forms of engagement which encourage dialogue and collaboration in public forums, decreasing the clear detachment between public and private writing. The Internet has facilitated constant, instantaneous and global communications (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Social networking services are not just allowing Internet users access to immediate information, social media is giving us access to the lives of friends or colleagues and encouraging users to contribute to online discussions and share private information. Social media sites are transforming online user behaviour and in the process Barnes (2012) believes social media is actively changing users' expectations of what constitutes private and public writing. Social media functions by relying on its users to share personal information and broadcast their daily lives, therefore user's personal contributions are fuelling the growth in the sharing of traditionally private writing over the Internet in a new era of public participation.

The principle results of active participation facilitated in part by social media is the breakdown in the division between producers and audience (Barna, 2009). This division was particularly clear in traditional mass media and has been largely erased, fostering a new culture built upon public participation. According to Barna (2009), advances in technology have allowed anyone with access to the Internet to be a producer of content. Participatory culture encourages people to share experiences and information for the purpose of news intended for mass audiences (public writing) or as a form of self-expression (traditionally termed private writing). Despite users still writing for both public and private outcomes, the division becomes blurred on the Internet given its public, indexed and network infrastructure. The uptake of social media paired with the emergence of a participatory culture means it is now virtually impossible to differentiate public and private writing (Lüders, 2008). Debatin (cited in Chacko, 2010) believes we are witnessing the materialization of an interconnected global network which is replacing the public and private spheres. He describes an 'infosphere', a digitized networked domain that leaves little room for unmonitored privacy.

In the early modern era, the public sphere was a constitutive corollary of the private sphere. In the era of the info sphere, the public and private spheres become amalgamated, which results in public exploitation of private lives, increasing invasion of privacy, and continual diminishment of unmonitored privacy (Debatin (cited in Chacko, para. 12, 2010).

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