Political Blogs Research Articles

Bloggers’ Community Characteristics and Influence within Greek Political Blogosphere

This paper investigates the properties of central or core political blogs. They can be located as clusters of blogs whose members have many incoming links. Other blogs form clouds around them in the sense that they link the core blogs. A case study records Greek political blogs and their incoming links reported through their blogrolls. The adjacency matrix from the blogs’ social network is analyzed and clusters are located. Three of them, those with the larger numbers of incoming links, may be considered to be central. Next, four measures of influence are used to test the influence of the central blogs. The findings suggest that there are many kinds of central blogs, influential and non-influential, and high influence does not always involve high hyperlinking.

A Tale of Two Blogospheres

In this article, the authors compare the practices of discursive production among top U.S. political blogs on the left and right during summer 2008. An examination of the top 155 political blogs reveals significant cross-ideological variations along several dimensions. Notably, the authors find evidence of an association between ideological affiliation and the technologies, institutions, and practices of participation. Blogs on the left adopt different, and more participatory, technical platforms, comprise significantly fewer sole-authored sites, include user blogs, maintain more fluid boundaries between secondary and primary content, include longer narrative and discussion posts, and (among the top half of the blogs in the sample) more often use blogs as platforms for mobilization. The findings suggest that the attenuation of the news producer-consumer dichotomy is more pronounced on the left wing of the political blogosphere than on the right. The practices of the left are more consistent with the prediction that the networked public sphere offers new pathways for discursive participation by a wider array of individuals, whereas the practices of the right suggest that a small group of elites may retain more exclusive agenda-setting authority online. The cross-ideological divergence in the findings illustrates that the Internet can be adopted equally to undermine or to replicate the traditional distinction between the production and consumption of political information. The authors conclude that these findings have significant implications for the study of prosumption and for the mechanisms by which the networked public sphere may or may not alter democratic participation relative to the mass mediated public sphere.

Journalism’s digital disconnect: The growth of campaign content and entertainment gatekeepers in viral political information

There is much concern about the long-tail of online political information that now competes with standard news content. Yet we know little about how successfully it does so, and why. From the 2008 US presidential campaign, I develop a rich, original meta-database to map the relationships between the top viral election videos (278 million views) and the known-universe of blogs that linked to them (13,000 links). Through a mixed-method analysis of both content and web metrics, I find that news videos compete with political, entertainment and citizen videos; journalism blogs also compete with political, entertainment, and lifestyle blogs to propagate these new genres of political information. By further analyzing the gatekeeping mechanisms between video and blog categories, I find that online audiences’ civic information preferences help explain the rise of these new participatory political information genres, as well as the ways in which legacy media are struggling to adapt.

The Influence of A-list Political Blogs in the Japanese Blogosphere : a Content Analysis of Blogs in Japan's 2007 Upper House Election

The Influence of A-list Political Blogs in the Japanese Blogosphere : a Content Analysis of Blogs in Japan's 2007 Upper House Election

Do Political Blogs Matter? Corruption in State-Controlled Companies, Blog Postings, and DDoS Attacks

Do new media promote accountability in non-democratic countries, where offline media are often suppressed? We show that blog posts, which exposed corruption in Russian state-controlled companies, had a negative causal impact on their market returns. For identification, we exploit the precise timing of blog posts by looking at within-day results with company-day fixed effects. Furthermore, we show that the posts are ultimately associated with higher management turnover and less minority shareholder conflicts. Taken together, our results suggest that social media can discipline corruption even in a country with limited political competition and heavily censored traditional media.

Politicians’ Blogs: Strategic Self-Presentations and Identities

The empirical material of this article consists of a blog section that organizes the blogs of mainly local and regional politicians in the north of Sweden. The aim of the article is to examine the content and style of blogs written by politicians and, especially, how the blogs can be understood in terms of self-presentations and articulations of identities. A further aim is to discuss the political and democratic aspects of such articulations. The article argues that even though the investigated blogs are somewhat innovative, they have a traditional character in a political sense and reproduce a populist identity. This identity goes beyond the boundaries between different political parties and represents a hindrance in relation to the democratic renewal that is often ascribed to political blogging in general.

Cascades and the political blogosphere

Despite the fact that political blogs seem to be just as dominated by elites as traditional journalism, networks of individuals play an essential role in spreading arguments in the political blogosphere. The hyperlinking economy of political blogs is powered by competition, elevation, and access. This economy values networks of individuals just as much as — if not more than — it values elite top–tier bloggers.

A Gendered Blogosphere? Portrayal of Sarah Palin on Political Blogs during the 2008 Presidential Campaign

This case study explores gender stereotyping by comparing the ways in which vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden were portrayed on Internet blogs. Results suggest Palin did not suffer from a lack of attention. While she did receive a considerable amount of coverage focusing on her personality and personal life in comparison to Democratic candidate Joe Biden, that was likely a result of her unique candidacy and persona. Perhaps most important, the blogs did not play to traditional gender stereotypes concerning issue coverage even as a stereotypically male issue dominated the political agenda.

Communicating with voters by blogs? Campaigning for the 2009 European Parliament elections

Following the rise in use of online communication in electoral campaigns throughout the world, this article deals with the use of blogs by politicians in Europe. Through the approach of Critical Discourse Analysis, it analyzes blog posts written by the European Parliament incumbents running for the European Parliament elections in 2009, from four different EU states and ideological backgrounds, and at the same time the four largest political groups in the European Parliament. The purpose of the study is to reveal the campaign strategy and dominant discourses through the analysis of the format, style and appeals. The findings reveal the differences in discourses between four political blogs, which result from the different use of language and appeals.

Administering social issues in Malaysia: An application of social management system

This paper discusses the need for social scientists to not only react to events, but to follow a four-step model to ensure the effectiveness of their roles. The discussion centers around the case of the Rumah Panjang KTM, one of the most badly affected areas during the ethnic clash in Kampung Medan. Adopting the PINTAS model, it is imperative that concerned social scientists follow through a four-step model to achieve an integrated nation and to reduce conflict between its members. Furthermore, these two elements were intricately linked to the survival and displacement of elites within the ruling system. However, there has recently been a transformation of the government and its policies. The Malaysia’s 2008 12thgeneral election witnessed a major political transformation and the rise of political blogging and other manifestations of the non-mainstream media in Malaysia. The Malay, Chinese and Indian tended to stick within their beneath the tranquility surface of Malaysian society, tensions of the potential for violence still lurks. The data regarding the socio-political tension plays significant impact and tremendous changes in Malaysia reflect relative political hegemony of the Malaysian democracy. Key words: Ethnic clash, social conflict, hegemony, new media.

‘The Noise Here is Beginning to Get Comical’: An Exploratory Analysis of American Political Blog Communities on Election Day 2008

Since their creation over a decade ago, blogs have become an important means of communication. Blogs focusing on politics have risen to prominence in the United States, especially during elections. Prior research into political blogs has focused on content and link analysis, but few studies have analyzed the comments left on political blogs by readers. The interactions between bloggers and readers in the comments of political blogs have created political communities. This study attempts to explore the blog communities created on Election Day 2008 through quantitative and qualitative analysis of the comments left by blog readers on five elite American political blogs. Quantitative results showed that a few commenters account for the majority of the comments posted. Qualitative analysis of one blog post and its associated comments revealed more vulgarity than deliberative debate between commenters. These conclusions are preliminary, but they demonstrate the necessity of further research into blog comments and blog communities.

Reflections on the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election in the Turkish Blogosphere

The current study presents the results of a research investigation into the role of political blogs in the international political communication process by focusing on the 2008 U.S. presidential election and its reflection in the Turkish blogosphere. Four types of analysis were carried out in order to (a) evaluate the overall blogosphere’s reaction in Turkey towards the U.S. presidential candidates; (b) measure the awareness of Internet audience in Turkey about the candidates; (c) identify the main themes of discourse in the Turkish blogosphere; and (d) determine the level of interactivity in blogs in the discussion of the candidates. A total of 205 political blogs were examined. The findings indicate that a direct relationship between the level of online activity of the candidates and the number of blog entries and comments.

Hypercitizens from a Distinct Society

While many, mostly American, scholars have recently conducted quantitative and qualitative investigations of the structure and content of political blogs, few have focused on the political involvement of their authors. Based on data collected through an online survey conducted in April 2008, this paper proposes the first detailed account of the sociopolitical profile of 56 members of the Quebec political blogosphere. The description of these bloggers’ involvement in content dispersion and online social networks as well as their participation in offline political activities helps to better understand the particularities of an emergent community of active citizens. Additionally, the research draws contrasts with previous studies of the U.S. political blogosphere and argues for the production of more detailed analysis considering the specificities of different communities of North American political bloggers.

The Status of Journalistic Routines within Reporter-Run Political Blogs

The present research explores the relationships between newspaper circulation size (small vs. large), blog post focus (national vs. local/state), and blog post topic (political vs. government) and whether reporters who blog produce posts that break with journalistic routines or include references to the author. Analysis of 960 blog posts from nine newspapers suggests that smaller newspapers were more likely to produce posts that break with journalistic routines and include self-references than larger newspapers. Posts that focused on national news were more likely to break with journalistic routines but were not more likely to include self-references. Posts about political news were more likely to both break with journalistic routines and to include self-references.

Study Shows Some Blogs Affect Traditional News Media Agendas

This study, which explored the source interaction between elite traditional news media and political filter blogs, found traditional news media frequently cite blogs in their coverage, but the source attribution to the blogs is often vague.

Tracking the Blogs: An Evaluation of Attacks, Acclaims, and Rebuttals Presented on Political Blogs During the 2008 Presidential Election

This study employed Benoit’s functional theory of presidential discourse to examine the incidence of attacks, acclaims, and rebuttals on four politically aligned blogs and six politically nonaligned blogs. Results suggest that candidates use their own blogs for acclaims, political parties use their blogs to level attacks against opponents, and rebuttals on blogs are rare. These findings are contrasted with the entries on six politically nonaligned political blogs directed toward specialized audiences, such as conservatives, liberals, independents, women, African Americans, and Christians. Candidate blogs contained significantly more acclaims than did nonaligned blogs, but both were similar with respect to incidence of attacks and rebuttals.

Political blog readers: Predictors of motivations for accessing political blogs

This study examines the motivations for why politically interested Internet users in the United States access political blogs and attempts to discover which factors predict motivations for using political blogs. Political surveillance/guidance motives appeared as the strongest motivation for using political blogs, followed by expression/affiliation, convenience/information seeking, and entertainment. Hierarchical regression analysis reveals that blog users with higher levels of political involvement and strength of party affiliation are attracted to political blogs to freely express their political opinion and communicate with other like-minded people, which may indicate the potential of Weblogs as an interactive political discursive space. Based on the findings, this study presents implications and suggestions for future research.

Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Blog?

This study examines the role of women political bloggers and how they use their blogs for purposes related to politics, public policy, and current events. Based on a combined purposive-snowball sample, in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 women political bloggers in October 2006. Findings show respondents blog about a range of topics, not necessarily unique to women. Generally, women use their blogs to inform their readers, check the media, engage in advocacy efforts, and solicit charitable contributions from their readers and more specifically, women ask their readers to vote and contact elected officials. Data show women deal with a range of challenges blogging most notably discrimination. Though a majority of women political bloggers reported they did not face discrimination, interviewees qualified their responses saying they witnessed discrimination and discriminatory attitudes, suggesting the political blogosphere is somewhat inhospitable to women.

Standpoint in Political Blogs: Voice, Authority, and Issues

In 2005, political commentator Susan Estrich rebuked Michael Kinsley, then-editor of the Los Angeles Times, for excluding women from the newspaper's editorial pages. She argued that Kinsley neither...

Using Time Series Analysis to Measure Intermedia Agenda-Setting Influence in Traditional Media and Political Blog Networks

Using time series analysis to gauge intermedia agenda setting in a sample of eighteen U.S. political blogs, two elite traditional news entities, and their eleven political newsroom blogs across three issues in 2007, this study reveals that traditional media were unable to set political blog agendas. Ideologically diverse political blog networks were also able to set traditional media's online news agenda, and, to a lesser extent, their newsroom blog agenda. Findings point to a dilution of traditional media's singular agenda-setting influence and to greater interdependence between traditional media and political blogs than suggested by hyperlink studies.