Armando's interesting diary raised some questions for me about what we really know about DKos's influence. The following discussion made me wonder what is really happening in research on blogs.
The long and short of it is that I was killing time at Neward airport as I left NYC (gasp!). I started an extremely quick literature search to see what's out there. I thought a lot of interesting comments are being made. I don't want to defend any of them, and I certainly don't endorse them. BUT it's interesting to see what is said, and to ask whether it's all accurate.
So here's what a quick scan of the first deliverances of Academic Search Premier revealed:
Title: Conservative Blogs Are More Effective.
Authors: Crowley, Michael
Source: New York Times Magazine; 12/11/2005, Vol. 155 Issue 53425, p64-66, 2p
Document Type: Article
Abstract: The article reports that conservative blogs are more effective politically than their liberal counterparts. Conservative blogs tend to strategically attack political targets, providing information that is then picked up by the conservative media. Liberal blogs tend to be more focused on examining the issues, but are removed from real engagement in strategic campaigning.
and
Title: The Wild, Wild Web.
Authors: Zuckerman, Mortimer B.
Source: U.S. News & World Report; 12/5/2005, Vol. 139 Issue 21, p76-76, 1p, 1c
Document Type: Editorial
Abstract: The article presents an editorial regarding the role of the Internet in forming public opinion and in the dissemination of information. Weblogs have proliferated in the United States. Some have the power to influence public opinion and political attitudes. Weblog writers often repeat information without checking the facts. Some Weblogs have focused on whether oil drilling should take place in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, allow the public the gauge the benefits and risks of such a venture. Other Weblogs focus on the Iraq War.
A quote from the article above:
The blogs, while fragmenting our mass audience and carrying many more inaccuracies than mainstream media, have nonetheless democratized journalism by giving citizens daily and immediate access to different opinions and, sometimes, to purveyors of truly expert knowledge.
Take the issue of whether oil drilling should take place in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Websites now provide the relevant documents and statements from governmental, corporate, and environmental bodies, along with information about costs, benefits, and risks from other specialists. Alaskans share their experience with oil drilling on the North Slope and their hopes and concerns for the state's economy and environment. The result is a public better able to make trade-offs among desired objectives and to assess a wider range of policy options.
...
In national politics, bloggers forced to the attention of the mainstream media an unfortunate comment then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott made at Strom Thurmond's 100th-birthday party, converting his gaffe into a full-blown scandal. Bloggers forced Dan Rather to acknowledge that the documents used in the story about President Bush's National Guard service could not be authenticated. The list goes on.
The opinion blogs have, in effect, become a "fifth estate," a barometer of attitudes not just in the United States but in the world. Now, we must learn how to make the most of a flow of fact and opinion unimaginable just a decade ago.
and
Title: Blogs in Campaign Communication.
Authors: Lawson-Borders, Gracie1
Kirk, Rita2
Source: American Behavioral Scientist; Dec2005, Vol. 49 Issue 4, p548-559, 12p
Abstract: In Election 2004, campaign Weblogs--or blogs--became a standard feature of campaign Web sites. Monitoring the adaptation of emergent technological tools into political communication assists future generations of scholars to understand the genesis of communication applications and explore future uses. Blogs are online diaries where information is electronically posted, updated frequently, and presented in reverse chronological order. Three concourses of research provide insight into blogging as a political communication function: the investigation of the blog as a social diary, the analysis of blogs as organizing tools, and blogs viewed as a form of civic, participatory journalism. The authors do not claim that blogging had a significant impact on the 2004 election outcome. However, they do argue that its effective use has been demonstrated and emerging applications of the tool pave the way for future campaign communication, one the authors suggest will become a standard part of campaign communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Then there is the totally delicious
Title: Identity, Electronic Ethos, and Blogs: A Technologic Analysis of Symbolic Exchange on the New News Medium.
Authors: MacDougall, Robert1
Source: American Behavioral Scientist; Dec2005, Vol. 49 Issue 4, p575-599, 25p
Abstract: News blogs (Web logs dedicated to the dissemination of news) are becoming the default political news source for a growing number of well-educated and apparently well-informed segments of the population. Bloggers and blog advocates suggest that blogs, online lists, and their various analogs offer something different and potentially unique to the 21 st-century citizen. At their best, blogs represent a new form of open-sourced/open-access partisan press that promises to bring McLuhan's tribal context one step closer to fulfillment. At their worst, blogs represent the latest form of mass-mediated triviality and celebrity spectacle, with the potential to create and sustain insulated enclaves of intolerance predicated on little more than personal illusion, rumor, and politically motivated innuendo. Employing first a medium theoretic and then a symbolic interactionist lens, the present study considers some of the key structural features of news blogs and discusses some of the personal, social, and political significances of blogs and blogging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
The final paragraph from the article immediately above:
Blogs continue to stake out significant pieces of real estate on the Internet. If these
arenas do not get us any closer to some idealized notion of face-to-face interaction,
they do seem to allow us to get, in effect, closer to others who inhabit the same "cultural
unit," occupy the same interpretive/speech community, or have similar affiliations
and affections as ourselves ... The political and civic
functions of news blogs may not be what they appear. Because of the formal structure
of the interface, and in part the ease by which a visitor can arrive and exit, blogs may
not enhance the interplay of diverse political perspectives in the way they have been
billed. However, news blogs will likely remain an important part of many people's
everyday lives because they allow us--and we seem to use them--to reach others like
ourselves. For this reason, blogs will continue to foster a profound sense of community
within select political and social groupings.
So what's being said? Three things stood out for me: (1) the rethugs continue to practice the politics of personal destruction, and they are effective at it. (2) Political blogs may be better at solidifying a community than they are at bringing others into the fold. And (3) Blogs are now an aknowledged presence in political discourse in the US
If the second is true, that could be something to discuss here.