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June 5, 2005
Models for the potential impact of blogs: hubs vs. fabric
Katie Kaye at Personal Democracy Forum reports on a recent study that assesses the extent to which blogs instigate issues that then make their way into mainstream media.
Bloggers are often touted as influential instigators, feeding buzz-worthy topics to the mainstream media they so disdain, and even guiding discussion in other communication channels. Not so, says a new study analyzing the impact of political blogs on the national conversation leading up to the 2004 presidential election. Indeed, Buzz, Blogs, and Beyond: The Internet and the National Discourse in the Fall of 2004 concludes that, while a force to be reckoned with, blogs are merely cogs in the meme machine.... while the report acknowledges “there must be something special about the relationship between bloggers and political buzz,“ blogs were no more responsible for setting the issue agenda or sustaining it than were the other channels. Yet, the findings show that blogs do act as an Internet hub, positioned between the media and online chats in such a way as to act as a Web guide to the media.
This conclusion resonates with the points made in the blogger and mainstream media session at the D3 conference (see my notes from this).
The "blogs as internet hub" model describes one of the truly innovative possibilities enabled by digital media and low-cost publishing. But I think the "hub" notion misses some of the real power and impact of blogs. I think a greater influence will increasingly derive from the role of "blogs as fabric". While each blog may be a hub for discussion, the blogs in aggregate serve to connect the fragmented information sources. Someone who reads a blog post can not only learn what the author and commentators thought, but also gets connection to the broader web of discussion from different blogs and other articles. New tools are enabling readers to integrate and comprehend the large-scale conversation on a given topic, including supporting facts and dissenting views. When mature and mainstream, I think this will change the nature of discourse. This will also realize the vision of the hypermedia pioneers like Doug Englebart, who views linking and integration as supporting capabilities required to increase our Collective IQ.
Posted by barney at June 5, 2005 11:58 AM
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