| Survey Papers
Veenstra, A. S., Sayre, B. & Thorson, K., 2008. “Sticking Together Online: Political Participation and Ideologically Homogeneous Blog Consumption.” Presented at AAPOR 2008 in New Orleans, LA. [Abstract | PDF]
Though political bloggers are often caricatured in the media as lone voices, their blogs provide virtual spaces for their readers to discuss politics and organize political action. The new expressive and participatory opportunities made available by the Internet in general and blogs in particular will only become more important to the political process as the number of people making use of them increases. At the same time that blogs have become an important part of the political landscape, ideological media in general have seen a rise in prominence. In this paper, we seek to examine the relationship between the ideological homogeneity of one's blog consumption and the tendencies to participate in and discuss politics.
Recent research suggests that participation and deliberation have a generally negative relationship with one another, and that homogeneous social networks are more effective for mobilizing participation than are cross-cutting networks (Mutz, 2006). We therefore expect that discussion within a mostly ideologically unified blog community acts as a pathway to participation for its readers by providing a safe space for mobilizing collective action. Using data from a survey of political blog readers conducted during November 2006, we scored respondents' five most frequently visited political blogs as either liberal or conservative and combined them for a measure of homogeneity. We then tested the role of this exposure variable in explaining political participation -- both on- and offline -- and reported contributions to online discussion. This study provides new evidence of links between the ideological composition of individual media consumption choices and the likelihood of engaging in various forms of political action.
Veenstra, A. S., Sayre, B. & Thorson, K., 2008. “Navigating the New Mainstream: Comparing Readers of High and Low Traffic Political Blogs.” Presented at AAPOR 2008 in New Orleans, LA. [Abstract | PDF]
A small handful of political blogs dominate the conversation that occurs in the blogosphere, obscuring the fact that thousands, perhaps millions, of additional political blogs exist below that fast-paced back-and-forth. The impact of these lower-traffic blogs doesn’t compare to the big blogs on a case-by-case basis, but they may provide an important avenue for poorly represented viewpoints to get out to the public, and for individual citizens to develop a more well-rounded understanding of an issue. This paper examines the relationship between individual readers’ blog consumption motivations and the extent to which the blogs they read are part of the mainstream blogosphere.
Research by Nardi et al (2004) and Kaye (2005) finds a number of different motivations for producing and reading blogs. We expect that, in particular, the motivations to read blogs for political participation reasons and for media surveillance reasons will translate into different instrumental usage of blogs by readers. Specifically, readers expressing these different motivations should seek out blogs with different characteristics – those who want to participate in the political process will want blogs that have a large enough community to facilitate such an interest, while those who want to find information will want blogs that give them as much different kinds of information as possible. We test this question using data from a survey of political blog readers conducted during November 2006. Respondents were asked for their five most-visited political blogs, which we code for centrality in the blogosphere to construct a measure of mainstreamness. This study provides new evidence for the ability of the Internet to shape public opinion through the usage patterns of Internet users, specifically helping to illuminate the role of channel selection in attitude formation.
Veenstra, A. S., 2007. “Blogger/Reader Interaction: How Motivations Impact Pathways to Political Interest.” Presented at MAPOR 2007 in Chicago, IL. [Abstract | PDF]
As blog readers continue to leave traditional media outlets behind in favor of blogs, exposure to new topics via blogs becomes an increasingly important source of new and growing political interest. Since bloggers driven by intrinsic motivation will likely spend less time blogging outside their own thought processes than those driven by extrinsic motivation, and since intrinsic and external motivations occur independent of one another, there appear to be two pathways for bloggers to impact their readers levels of political interest. One of those pathways starts with high levels of intrinsic motivation and ends with lower reader interest; the other starts with high levels of external motivation and ends with higher reader interest. Pathways from three types of external blogger motivation, one type of intrinsic motivation and four additional research questions are tested using unique survey data from a sample of both bloggers and their readers. Weighted regression analysis finds that blogger’s media critique motivation was a significant positive predictor of political interest (ß = .10, p < .001), while blogger’s intrinsic motivation was a significant negative predictor (ß = -.05, p < .05); blogger’s political and informative motivations were not significant predictors. Additionally, the blogger’s self-view as an activist positively predicts readers’ political interest (ß = .11, p < .001), while a journalist self-view negatively predicts interest (ß = -.08, p < .001). Both measurements of readers’ motivation – activism (ß = .12, p < .001) and surveillance (ß = .26, p < .001) – were positive predictors of their political interest.
Veenstra, A. S., Bode, L., Wang, B. M., Shah, D. V. & Perlmutter, D. D., 2007. “Authorship, Intention, and Orientations: How Bloggers and Their Readers Create Participatory Opportunity.” Presented at AoIR 2007 in Vancouver, BC. [PDF]
Gil de Zúñiga, H., Veenstra, A. S., Vraga, E. K., Shah, D. V. & Perlmutter, D. D., 2007. “Online and Offline Activism: Communication Mediation and Political Messaging Among Blog Readers.” Presented at AEJMC 2007 in Washington, DC. [PDF]
Ekdale, B., Namkoong, K., Fung, T. K., Hussain, M. M., Arora, M. & Perlmutter, D. D., 2007. “The Change in Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations for Blogging By Popular American Political Bloggers.” Presented at AEJMC 2007 in Washington, DC. [PDF]
Hwang, H., Thorson, K., Borah, P., Cleland, R. & Perlmutter, D. D., 2007. “The Blogosphere and Participatory Democracy: The Role of Hostile Media Perception in Blog Users’ News Source Selection and Expressive Participation.” Presented at AEJMC 2007 in Washington, DC. |
Experiment Papers
Thorson, K., Fung, T. & Vraga, E. K., 2008. “How You Feel Makes You What You Are: Partisan Reactions to Political Incivility Online.” Presented at AEJMC 2008 in Chicago, IL. [PDF]
Hwang, H., Borah, P., Namkoong, K. & Veenstra, A. S., 2008. “Does Civility Matter in the Blogosphere? Examining the Interaction Effects of Incivility and Disagreement on Citizen Attitudes.” Presented at ICA 2008 in Montréal, QC. [Abstract | PDF]
Previous research has addressed problems of incivility in traditional media setting as well as interpersonal communication. However, the growing readership of partisan-based political blogs and recent concerns about nasty blogs calls for research attention on how bloggers’ tone of expressing disagreement influence readers’ emotional reactions and their attitudes toward political disagreement. Accordingly, this study examines how readers react to uncivil blog commentary, as a function of whether or not they identify as a member of the party that the partisan blogger is critiquing. Results generally support scholars’ concerns about detrimental effects of incivility especially when the blogger attacked views consistent with the participants’ position.
Thorson, K., Vraga, E. K. & Ekdale, B., 2008. “Do You Believe This Story?!: The Impact of Uncivil and Ideologically Incongruent Adjacent Opinion Commentary on News Credibility.” Presented at ICA 2008 in Montréal, QC. [PDF]
Vraga, E. K., Edgerly, S., Wang, B. M. & Shah, D. V., 2008. “Who Taught Me That? Blog Structure, Information Recall, and Source Identification.” Presented at ICA 2008 in Montréal, QC. [PDF] |
