Political blog influence reconsidered: A network analysis of mainstream and alternative ethnic-racial American political blogs
Political blog influence reconsidered: A network analysis of mainstream and alternative ethnic-racial American political blogs

Summary/Abstract: According to a 2008 Pew Poll, nearly 1 in 4 Americans visited blogs for information about the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign. Researchers Drezner and Farrell argue that politically influential blogs direct, shape and limit discourse by “socially constructing interpretive frames for current events”.1 However, this particular study reflects a larger trend in political blog research that limits research to the mainstream, or top 100 blogs. Previous studies neglected publics outside of the mainstream and, by extension, suggested that alternative discourse lacks influence. Open communication networks are vital for issue representation, ideology and opinion formation especially among minority groups. The sample for this study focuses on ethnic-racial political blogs as one example of blogs outside of the mainstream blogosphere to explore the following questions: Can political blogs that exist outside of the mainstream, or alternative blogs, influence the mainstream network? If so, how can political blog influence be reconsidered to include these blogs? I use both network analysis and logit regression to explore these questions. My findings conclude that mainstream political blogs will be more likely to establish a direct link to an ethnic-racial political blog with higher influence within the alternative blog network.

• Details
• Contents