Meanings of technology shift over time in relation to ideologies and power at specific historical junctures. Currently, journalistic and popular discourses on “new media” posit a schism between a “modern”/digital present and “traditional” ways of the past. Such assumptions risk overemphasizing technology as the driving force behind social change. This study seeks to help “chart the path” of the new media “tidal wave” rather than merely investigating its current “froth at the crest” (Lister, Dovey, Giddings, Grant & Kelly, 2009, p. 3). It compares Lebanese literary depictions of media and communication since the start of the Lebanese Civil War (1974-1990) with media and communication practices among Lebanese bloggers during the Summer 2006 Israel-Hizballah conflict. I focus the literary analysis on the Lebanese civil war novel, a still-growing body of literature by writers in diverse geographic locations who address the Lebanese Civil War. I describe how these works collectively articulate the centrality of media and communication to Lebanese experiences of civil violence. As per the psychoanalytic concept of “intertextuality,” my analysis displaces the authorship of any individual work and situates the collective genre within a larger field of discourses. Specifically, I situate the Lebanese Civil War novel in relation to histories of global journalism and Lebanese media and systems of communication. Lebanese writers use the novels to convey what Juan Salazar calls a “media poetics” of decolonized practices. Through writing they interrogate the centrality of Western journalistic standards; address silenced national issues, such as exile and migration; and convey senses and patterns of experience dismissed more broadly as “chaotic” or “senseless.” These literary codifications of media and communication were reflected in the Lebanese “blogosphere” during the 2006 Israeli-Hizballah war. Through a textual analysis of blogs, and ethnographic data on the objectives and experiences of bloggers, I examine media practices and constructions of journalistic authority during the 2006 conflict. Journalistic authority, or the power to produce a “legitimate”/authoritative version of events, is contingent, shaped by the various struggles from which it emerges. Therefore, I relate activist, expert, and eyewitness positions of authority among Lebanese bloggers in Summer 2006 to the Lebanese civil war novel. I demonstrate how Lebanese blogging reflected the historic erasures of traditional Western journalism and the shortcomings of Lebanese media and systems of communication. Lister, Martin; Jon Dovey, Seth Giddings, Iain Grant, Kieran Kelly (2009). New Media: A Critical Introduction. New York, NY: Routledge.