blogging and the public sphere life online bruce ferwerda tommy van der vorst 31 maart 2010
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Blogging and the public sphere
Life Online
Bruce Ferwerda
Tommy van der Vorst
31 maart 2010
In this presentation
• Who are those bloggers?• Lenhart & Fox (2006): A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers
• What do bloggers do?• McKenna & Pole (2007): What do bloggers do: an average day on an
average political blog
• The power of weblogs• Drezner & Farell (2007): Blogs, politics and power
• Interactions among bloggers: the blogosphere• Hargittai, Gallo & Kane (2007): Cross-ideological discussions among
conservative and liberal bloggers
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 218-04-23
Weblogs
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 318-04-23
Who are those bloggers?
Let’s throw in some statistics...
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 418-04-23
Who are those bloggers?
• Blogging is bringing new voices to the online world
Lenhart & Fox conducted a survey in the US:• 54% of bloggers have never published anywhere else
• 8% of internet users maintains a blog
• 39% read blogs
• Various topics & motives for blogging
• High percentage of bloggers stopafter a while
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 518-04-23
Who are those bloggers?
• The blogging population:
• Is young (54% is <30)
• Consists of as many women as men
• Mostly in urban/suburban areas (13% in rural areas)
• Less likely to be white than average internet user
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 618-04-23
Who are those bloggers?
Blogs can be personal or be a ‘public endeavour’:
• 55% of bloggers use a pseudonym
• For 84%, blogging is a hobby or “something I do, but not something a spend a lot of time on”
• 59% spend just one or two hours per week maintaining their blog
• 52% blog mostly for themselves, not for an audience; 32% blog mostly for their audience
(Why blog ‘just for yourself’?)
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 718-04-23
Who are those bloggers?
Blogging vs. Journalism:
• 34% consider their blog a form of journalism
• 57% include links to original sources ‘often’
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 818-04-23
What do bloggers do?
• McKenna & Pole (2007): exploratory empirical study• How do political bloggers use their blogs
Categorization of blogging activities:• Informer activities• Watchdog activities (“keeping an eye on mainstream media”)• Political activities• Philantropic activities
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 918-04-23
What do bloggers do?
Findings• average blogger ≠ average citizen
(Demographics differ from Lenhart & Fox: more whites, more males)
• Informer activities
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 1018-04-23
What do bloggers do?
Findings• Watchdog activities
• 80% of bloggers notify their readers about bias or omissions in the media
• Close second to informing activities
• Bloggers do not trust mainstream media
• But also rely on it!
• Blogging as ‘first-rate journalism’ in countries without free press or in the case of events (i.e. Hurricane Katrina)
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 1118-04-23
What do bloggers do?
Findings• Political activities: 2/3 of bloggers want to engage
people• They want you:
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 1218-04-23
What do bloggers do?
Findings• Political activities: 2/3 of bloggers want to engage
people• They want you:
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 1318-04-23
What do bloggers do?
Findings• Political activities: 2/3 of bloggers want to engage
people• They want you:
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 1418-04-23
What do bloggers do?
Findings• Philantropic activities
• Asking readers to donate (44%)
− (interestingly, this is lower than the 66% donators in the US)
• Rarely pursued activity (i.e. not the ‘core business’)
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 1518-04-23
The power of weblogs
Drezner & Farell (2007) Introduction:− Blogs, politics and power: a special issue of Public Choice
•Are blogs indeed important to politics?•Do they have a beneficial or harmful effect?
/ name of department PAGE 1618-04-23
The power of weblogs
Do blogs affect politics?•Blogs can be important
• More important as reactors to the media than independent agenda setters
•When does blogs have political power?•Least trusted source of news
• (BBC/Reuters/Media Center 2006)
/ name of department PAGE 1718-04-23
The power of weblogs
Are blogs good for politics?•Ongoing discussion•Cyberapartheid
• “... increasing people’s ability to hear echoes of their own voices and to wall themselves off from others.” (Sunstein 2001, p.49)
•Linking & comments
/ name of department PAGE 1818-04-23
Interactions among bloggers
Hargittai, Gallo & Kane (2007)− Cross-ideological discussions among conservative and liberal bloggers
Do people abandon the reading of dissenting political opinions in favor of material that is closely aligned with their own ideological position?
/ name of department PAGE 1918-04-23
Interactions among bloggers
• H1• Blogs are more likely to link to blogs that match their
ideological persuasion
• H2• The amount of cross-ideological linking among blogs
wille decline over time
Hargittai, Gallo & Kane (2007)
/ name of department PAGE 2018-04-23
Interactions among bloggers
Cross-ideological linkages in the political blogosphere
•Blogroll connections• 27% presented in the whole network
• 91% resemble ideological positions
• 9% different viewpoints
/ name of department PAGE 2118-04-23
Interactions among bloggers
Cross-ideological linkages in the political blogosphere
•Links in posts• More likely to link to ideological blogs
• 12% conservative liberal
• 16% liberal conservative
/ name of department PAGE 2218-04-23
Interactions among bloggers
• H1• Blogs are more likely to link to blogs that match their
ideological persuasion
• H2• The amount of cross-ideological linking among blogs
wille decline over time
/ name of department PAGE 2318-04-23
Interactions among bloggers
/ Innovation Sciences PAGE 2418-04-23