A little blog abuse is worth it for a lot of discourse

American critic and author Lee Siegel is causing something of a stir both online and offline with the latest book to highlight the many shortcomings of the internet - Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. His thesis, as the lengthy title suggests, centres on the part the internet has played in the coarsening of public discourse. He is, as many are, upset in particular about the preponderance of anonymous posters and bloggers who take potshots at the establishment under a cloak of anonymity. It is a subject close to his heart, one imagines. He became notorious for being suspended by the New Republic after posting anonymously in the comments section of his own blog - suggesting other critical and abusive posters were "not fit to tie Siegel's shoelaces". One can imagine that after this humiliation a bestseller attacking the causers of your own undoing is therapeutic.

Last week, although a tirelessly cheerful advocate of the opening up of public discourse by the internet, I found myself trying to impose some crowd control on an electronic mob, the like of which would have Mr Siegel hugging himself with glee and self-righteous I-told-you-so-ness. We had what might be described as a viral strike against a blogger posting on our normally very orderly travel blog, after he wrote a piece about the start of his backpacking trip to India. If you are the kind of person who lurks on the popbitch message boards, and most MediaGuardian readers probably are, then you will already know what I am talking about. Our unfortunate contributor, Max Gogarty, was soon the subject of facebook groups, wikipedia entries, discussion throughout the internet and investment bank viral email chains. Over the course of 24 hours the fun-poking and sometimes actively abusive discourse turned from the backpacker to the Guardian and our part in this publication. The accusations included nepotism among other things.

This happens to anyone with a popular content-based website on a reasonably regular basis, and if you deal with it every day then you simply get used to it after a time. The difficult part now is to have a sensible discussion about engagement and debate over the internet without lapsing into Siegelese, which is just as contrarian and narrow as many of the abusive posters he complains about.

We have moved, almost without noticing, from the age of representation to the age of participation, and there will be a fairly bumpy ride whilst we all adjust to it. Oddly, it is the representative institutions, such as the press and parliament, which should stand to benefit most from the opening of discourse, but are actually most confounded by mass participation. Denial has been a frequently adopted strategy but that hasn't seemed to pay dividends.

What is more useful than a rage against the machine is a more thoughtful approach to how we can shepherd refinement into this new partnership. Part of it, and one sees this more often in the US blogosphere than in the UK, is having the confidence to know where to draw the line and how to withstand the occasional and inevitable bout of cyber-bullying. It gives one a new perspective and empathy with workers in the health, education and retail sectors who have to mop up a fair amount of face-to-face abuse on a daily basis.

Only since the opening of blogs or comments on articles have editors and journalists been exposed to what most customer relations departments have known for a long time. This is not to excuse uncivil and humourless or offensive abuse, or naked racism, homophobia or hate speech, but accepting that turning back time is not an option is the first step to working out a path to quality in the new world. And that does not mean leaving it just to the Lee Siegels of this world.

· Emily Bell is the Guardian's director of digital content