Political Blog Networks: OpenMindedness, New Media, and the Internet

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Political Blog NetworksOpen-Mindedness, New
Media, and the Internet

• Justin Solomon
• Stanford University

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The cultural practice has emerged to reference
through links for easy transition from your own
page or post to the one you are referring
towhether as in inspiration or in disagreement.
- Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks
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The cultural practice has emerged to reference
through links for easy transition from your own
page or post to the one you are referring
towhether as in inspiration or in disagreement.
- Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks
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The Internet is not an objective political
community.
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Evidence

• Previous studies
• Network topology
• Specific blogs

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Previous Work
Adamic, Lada and Natalie Glance. The Political
Blogosphere and the 2004 US Election Divided
They Blog. Conference on Knowledge Discovery in
Data Proceedings of the Third International
Workshop on Link Discovery.
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Consequences

• Little diversity in opinion
• Escalation in political extremism
• Little chance to make an ideological difference

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Methodology

• Traversed homepages crawling capability
• Data collected 4/29/2008

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The Political Blogosphere
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The Political Blogosphere
Conservative
Interface?
Liberal
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Intra-Ideology Clustering
Liberal
Conservative
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Linking Patterns
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Linking Patterns
90
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Blogroll
Source http//its-curtains-for-you.blogspot.com/
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Blogroll
What about in-text citations?
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Blogroll
90
What about in-text citations?
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Example
http//romeocat.typepad.com/
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Example
D.J. (of Right Wing Liberal) is rightly taking
Obamarama-ding-dong to task for his assertion
that Hamas and Hezbollah have "legitimate
claims." You know, the Hezbollah and Hamas which
are terrorist organizations...
Next up is Leslie Carbone, one of the true Ladies
of Virginia, with high praise for the Tennessee
Republican Party's action in bring the issues up
and throwing them in the face of the Democrats
and the do-nothing-sweetness-and-light Republican
National Party
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Example
7 links to conservative blogs 0 links to liberal
blogs
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Further Questions

• Linkage versus readership
• Comparison with traditional media
• Balanced commentary withintext of blogs

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Conclusions
Practical Standpoint

• Implications for news sources
• Over-reliance on blogs for balanced commentary
• The web as breeding ground for political extremes

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Political Blog NetworksOpen-Mindedness, New
Media, and the Internet

• Justin Solomon
• Stanford University