Political Blogs Analysis - Term Paper Example

Blog Analysis Description Two political blogs - one conservative (Crooks and Liars, 2011) and one liberal (Daily Kos, 2011) - are selected for this study. The selected blogs are similar to ideological elements that attach to other blogs with comparable philosophy, who in turn connect to other blogs with related values, and so on and so forth. These systems are started in two ways. The initial method is by means of a blogroll, which is a static record of links to additional blogs that exists on a blogger’s homepage. The next method is to insert links to additional blogs in a blogger’s texts, letting visitors to navigate from one blog to another easily. Links as well as page views are the legal tender of the blogosphere. Through connecting to one another, bloggers are dynamically inventing policies on what they would like their viewers to read. These bloggers are “ideologically incestuous” (Myers, 2010), connecting to blogs with the same political perspectives 95 percent of the time. In accordance with the survey, majority of the blogs readers are males, well educated (80 percent having BA or higher degree), financially stable (51 percent earning more than 150,000 USD per annum), and with comparatively lesser inclination towards religion. As may be anticipated, blog viewers are inclined to be politically dynamic and more knowledgeable politically as compared to an average civilian. It has been revealed that blog observers utilize both blogs as fundamental “soapboxes” (Myers, 2010), an opportunity that let them make their views known to the masses and to take part in a continuing discussion on issues with political leaders. In view of the fact that every blog status site applies special standard to find out the recognition of a blog, it was decided that joining the outcomes of the blog status methods would be the most helpful way to find out the blogs to be taken into consideration. In order for a blog to be taken into account for the study, it had to concentrate on American politics and related issues, be on record for at least one of the blog status checking sites, should not be directly linked with a political faction. In addition, it should not be linked with the conventional media (such as key TV channels, tabloids, and so on) in view of the fact that blogs were initially planned to be a substitute to the conventional media. Another deciding factor that had to be met was the blogs used in the research had to have a record that gave viewers the aptitude to look for a visitor as well as blogger’s account of comments. For instance, Daily Kos was selected instead of Think Progress for the liberal blogs, since it has a record that let the user to look for all comments made by every individual commenter and the blogger himself. Due to the same reason Michelle Malkin, PajamasMedia.com, and HotAir.com were not selected. The two blogs that were selected for the study were the highest rated liberal highest rated conservative blogs. Following quite a lot of posts from the similar blogger was done with the intention to respond one of the factors to the preliminary research issue. It was an observation that, if substantiation of an “echo effect” (Myers, 2010) among the blogs as well as their viewers is there, the allocation of the echo effect would be looked at to observe if these echoed reactions were reach consistently with every commenter. On the other hand, if they were focused in the comments of a particular responder, despite the fact that others seldom or never echoed the actual posting. When choosing blogs with comments, quite a lot of regulations applied. Primarily, the comments must directly reply to the posting by the blogger. “A lot of comments are made on other people’s comments” (Myers, 2010). In view of the fact that the aim of the study is to observe the way readers act in response to the blog posting, comments that are on other comments instead of actual posting by the blogger were not taken into consideration. In addition, comments would only be gathered from blog postings. A number of websites have a news bulletin part other than a blog. This news bulletin part is basically articles gathered from a variety of sources all over the internet. This is not an actual blog. Only comments from the blog were acknowledged for this study. Moreover, if a posting was a repetition of a news bulletin with slight or no autonomous thoughts, or if it does go well with politics, which takes place on infrequent circumstances, then that blog post was disregarded. If the blog post dishonored any of the mentioned regulations, that blog was skipped. Context The most important research technique for this task was content study. As a result, a strict study took place to check whether a blog post in fact “echoed the ideas and thoughts of the political condition” (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011). If the post used the same expressions, either literally or expressions with similar connotations, then it was regarded as ‘echo’ of the actual posting. On the other hand, if the comment supported the post but articulated free views that divide the actual post instead of copying it, it was said subdivision. If the post conflicted with the current happenings and the response went in the contradictory way, it was said to be diverged. Most importantly, if the bog post had nothing to do with the actual topic of the blog, it was said to be unsystematic. However, the comments made by the viewers did not bound to be of the same opinion with the actual blog post; it only had to have the similar political point of view. If it had the similar political perception, the remark was termed as ‘similar’. If it had a varied or special political point of view, the remark termed as ‘diverse’. If the philosophy of the remark was not apparent or no ideas were revealed, the remark termed as ‘cannot tell’. If the remark had something to do with the actual theme of the blog, not considering the ideology, then it was termed as ‘pertinent’. If the remark was totally beside the point with respect to the blog, even if the remark was of the similar political point of view, it was termed as ‘extraneous’. Once the entire the data was examined, explanatory statistics were applied to produce a count of replies for all of the queries. Besides, “a confidence interval was performed to see where the range of answers would fall if applied to the entire blogosphere” (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011). The distribution of postings on both blogs proves that an echo effect does not exist in the political blogs. Out of the 170 blog posts examined, merely 2 remarks, or 1.56 percent, echoed the actual blog post. These two echoed remarks were consistently distributed among liberal as well as conservative postings, both acquiring one (1) a piece. In view of the fact that echo occurrence was so little, it was not viable to find out whether the distribution of echoed postings is concentrated within a very small number of visitors or if it is increase consistently all over the blogosphere. Instead of echoing the blog, the greater part of remarks diverge from the posting to make linked but creative posts. Overall, 65.56 percent of posts diverged from the actual blog theme. Results show the variations among liberal and conservative blog posts did exist. Remarks on conservative blogs diverged from the actual blog postings 94.22 percent of the time, whereas just 5% of commenters opposed or took the contradictory spot from the actual blog posting. On the other hand, remarks on liberal blogs had a lot more “dispersed distribution” (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011). Overall, 63.56 percent of remarks made on liberal sites diverged from the actual blog post, while, 34.44 percent differed. These blogs are a few of the most productive ones of these days’ new media, creating a number of articles each day. They can control the total mass of blog articles to generate a huge as well as extremely intense body for use with ‘machine knowledge’ systems. In addition, as blogs are usually relatively simple for a person to categorize by political bent, it is successfully a self-marked body. These variations are revealed while checking the confidence intervals of the remarks. The remarks on conservative blogs are more firmly in the ‘diverge’ group as compared to the remarks on liberal blogs. As revealed in Table 3, it can be stated that, “with 95 percent confidence, the mean score of whether or not conservative commenters echo the original posting is between 1.95 and 2.07 (where 1 = Echo, 2 = Branch, 3 = Differ, and 4 = Random). In comparison, with 95% confidence, the mean score of whether or not liberal commenters echo the original posting is between 2.21 and 2.46 (where 1 = Echo, 2 = Branch, 3 = Differ, and 4 =Random)” (Anderson, 2009). Statistic Standard Error Liberal Echo Mean 2.33 .064 95 % confidence interval for Mean Lower Bound 2.21 - Upper Bound 2.46 - 5 % trimmed Mean 2.33 - Variance 0.306 - Standard Deviation 0.563 - Conservative Echo Mean 2.01 0.303 95 % confidence interval for mean Lower Bound 1.95 - Upper Bound 2.07 - 5 % trimmed Mean 2.00 - Variance 0.067 - Standard Deviation 0.260 - Table 3: Confidence Interval for Echo Effect (for both Liberal and Conservative Blogs) (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011) Comparable variations can be noticed in the political point of views shows in posts. Remarks on conservative blogs exemplified conservative values 98.22 percent of the time as well as a contrasting philosophy did not take place in any of the remarks. Posts on liberal blog recognized with a liberal viewpoint 66.22 percent of the time with 9 percent of comments adopting a contrasting philosophy. On the other hand, 27.56 percent of remarks on liberal blog did not demonstrate receptiveness towards any political philosophy (Anderson, 2009). Liberal Political Point of View Frequency Percentage Similar 49 66.22 % Different 6 9.00 % Cannot Tell / N/A 20 27.56 % 75 100 % Table 4: Descriptive Statistics on Political Perspective for Liberal Blog (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011) Conservative Political Point of View Frequency Percentage Similar 73 98.22 % Different 0 0.00 % Cannot Tell / N/A 2 3.56 % 75 100 % Table 5: Descriptive Statistics on Political Perspective for Conservative Blog (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011) Variations can again be visible while testing the confidence intervals of the posts with respect to political point of view. The posts on conservative blog categorize additionally with the political point of view of the blog that they are posting on as compared to the commenters on liberal blogs. Table 5 reveals that, “with 95% confidence, the mean score of whether or not conservative commenters have the same political perspective as the original posting is between .98 and 1.13 (where 1 = Same Political Perspective, 2 = Different Political Perspective, 3 = NA / Cannot Tell). In contrast, the mean score of whether or not liberal commenters have the same political perspective as the original posting is between 1.41 and 1.82 (where 1 = Same Political Perspective, 2 = Different Political Perspective, 3 = NA / Cannot Tell)” (Keren¸2006). Statistic Standard Error Liberal Echo Mean 1.61 0.102 95 % confidence interval for Mean Lower Bound 1.41 - Upper Bound 1.82 - 5 % trimmed Mean 1.57 - Variance 0.781 - Standard Deviation 0.884 - Conservative Echo Mean 1.05 0.037 95 % confidence interval for mean Lower Bound 0.98 - Upper Bound 1.13 - 5 % trimmed Mean 1.00 - Variance 0.105 - Standard Deviation 0.324 - Table 6: Confidence Interval for Political Point of View (both Liberal and Conservative Blogs) (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011) Analysis The outcomes of this research imply that there is no echo effect in the two discussed political blogs. Posts on blogs were virtually constantly appropriate and are inclined to be free comments that diverged from the actual blog posting. On the other hand, the data also reveal a better alliance of ideology on conservative blog, with remarks that hardly ever denied the actual blog posts. Remarks on liberal blog revealed a lot more dissention. Maybe, this is purely because “conservatives’ frequent liberal blogs more often than liberals’ frequent conservative blogs” (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011). Alternatively, there exist additional conservatives within the blogosphere. Even though, it is supposed be taken into account, that more or less 30 percent of the remarks posted on liberal blogs were unable to exemplify any specific political point of view. As a result, it is feasible that more moderates view liberal blogs or that conventional liberal blogs might reveal the core of the liberal philosophy and that additional left of center liberals view blogs. This research reveals a sturdy link among types of posts as well remarks and the blog’s political point of view. “Comments on liberal blogs tend to treat the comment section as an open forum where they share ideas and often directly engage the blogger” (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011). The kind of blogs utilized for this study offers a possible restriction to this research. Both of these blogs are recognized, high traffic generating blogs. It would be remarkable to observe if lesser traffic blogs or one issue blogs take up the similar position. It could be implicit that a better alliance of ideology would exist on these blogs in view of the fact that they are not very popular and would possibly create a center of attention for people who are trying to look for a particular point of view. A more varied set of blogs utilized in the sample would possibly have given outcomes that could be applied more extensively. Remarks on conservative blogs are discovered to be angrier at most of their anguish targeted towards conflicting point of views, for the most part, liberal elites along with liberal philosophy. Conservative philosophy has been under fire at the moment, whereas liberal philosophy has been accepted to some extent. Maybe the country’s conservative hostile response has been combining the conservative foundation within the blogosphere. Since conservative opinions may be rejected in few regions of the nations, it is most convenient to be explicitly conservative within the vagueness of the internet. This could as well be a cause for a few of the negative remarks posted on liberal blogs. Due to the complete size of ‘Blogosphere’, it can be very tricky to navigate; ‘information overload’ gets a completely new importance after having several hours browsing the blog nets. A system is proposed to facilitate this task, by carrying out qualitative content study on blog articles. One can look ahead to a system that not just classifies blogs disjointedly, but also as well puts them beside a continuum so that it is simple to evaluate various blogs without much effort and hard work. These blogs are somewhat high volume, and are clearly partisan. The distinctive nature of blogs would possibly cause a bigger amount aggregated over longer period to be somewhat less functional. Even though this research is an excellent initial step in the direction of accepting the viewpoints of bloggers, upcoming research works should collect bigger as well as more varied samples in longer periods of time (Zafiropoulos & Virana, 2011). This would guarantee that the outcomes could be used evenly all over the blogosphere as well as facilitate individual to realize the connection amid the posts in a better way and remarks left on blogs and the political philosophies of the political blogs. References Anderson, M. A. (2009). In the Tank-A Bound Blog: How the Media Political Machine Used Conveyance of Toxic Information to Become the Latest Political Force to Be Reckoned With. iUniverse. Crooks and Liars. (2011). Official Blog of Crooks and Liars. Retrieved on December 17, 2011: http://crooksandliars.com/ Daily Kos. (2011). Official Blogs of Daily Kos. Retrieved on December 17, 2011: http://www.dailykos.com/ Keren, M. (2006). Blogosphere: The New Political Arena. Lexington Books. Myers, G. (2010). Discourse of Blogs and Wikis. Continuum. Zafiropoulos, K., and Virana, V. (2011). Hyperlink Analysis of Political Blogs Communication Patterns. Gazelle Distribution. Read More