As blogs provide people opportunity to freely express their points of views publicly, many bloggers try to “bypass” the traditional mainstream media and publish news stories neglected by those media. The participation of the general public is then encouraged. Also, unlike professional journalists who need to report news story everyday, bloggers can spend more time on a particular news story that interests them. By doing so, bloggers are able to “enlarge” the news agenda of the mainstream news report to cover the stories focused by blogs in more depth.
Blogs also challenge the mainstream media in other ways. On one hand, some blogs act as a “self-appointed watchdogs” (or the so-called “watchblogs”) to monitor or even criticize the mainstream media. On the other hand, the transparency of blogs also brings influence to the tradition news reports. They change people’s expectation on news report and push them to be more “fast and open”.
The results reveal that blogging behavior (e.g. the history and frequency of blogging) has nothing to do with the level of political efficacy and participation of both political and non-political bloggers. The author wants to know if the results are due to the short blogging time. Therefore, he further analyzes the relationship between bloggers who have blogged for more than a year and politics. However, the results are more or less the same. The author still finds no connection between long-term blogging and the level of political efficacy and participation.
For the function as the “Fifth Estate”, since the media in Malaysia have a special relationship with the ruling government, it is unwise to totally trust the mainstream media on some sensitive issues. Therefore, an “alternative media” is demanded to “break news, become the agenda setter, filter or provide information, frame stories, and highlight stories neglected by the mainstream media”. This “alternative media” was appeared in the form of blog.
For the function as “Networks”, a network can be formed in the blogosphere due to hyperlinks. This kind of connection is seen in two ways. One is the primarily linkage online and the other one is the “offline network” in which bloggers meet in person and form groups.
For the function as a “Platform of Expression”, different walks of people can get their voices be heard without filtration through blogs. Blogs also serve as a “training grounds for expression” for bloggers to improve the standard of their comments.
The author further suggests that these three functions of blogs are not “mutually exclusive” but “interconnected”.
For the “sense of community”, virtual communities, for example, blogs, fulfill the four elements of that physical communities fulfill. They are a “feeling of membership”, “influence”, “fulfillment of needs”, and “shared emotional connections”. The author focuses on the second element, i.e. influence, and points out that newspapers and their readers are mutually influential through newspaper blogs because newspapers provide reliable information to the readers while blogs “give readers the chance to influence what goes into the newspaper”.
For “social capital”, which describes the network among people, researches find that social contact on the Internet, such as the discussion on blogs with other people, enhances the “face-to-face social capital by encouraging participation in voluntary organizations”. The greater the sense of community people have online, the greater the social cohesion they enjoy in the real and physical community.
What can these two features affect the business of newspaper? As newspaper blogs create a sense of community and enhance the social capital of real communities, newspapers act like helping the community and therefore their credibility and circulations are increased, meaning that newspapers can make greater profits.
There has been an explosion in the number of blogs over the past decade. While many people focus on the increase in number, the author of this article finds that not many researches cover the content and consequence of blogging. Therefore, he did a research about these aspects of blogging.
His research encompasses one question: “how are political blogs influencing elite political discourse and public opinion in the United States?” The results find that political bloggers become “opinion leaders”. They are able to identify the issues and attract the attention of the mass public over these issues. Also, and more importantly, these bloggers can affect the decision of professional journalists and politicians of what issues to discuss. By doing so, bloggers become the centre of the interaction between the mass public and “elite actors”.
Reference
1. Hunter, Andrea. Why Blog? Community and Citizen Journalism in the North American Blogosphere. Ottawa: Carleton University, 2007. 14-31. 14 March 2011.
2. Kim, Eunseong. Political and Non-political Bloggers in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election: Motivations and Activities. Indiana University, 2006. 95-109. 14 March 2011.
3. Ming, Kuok Lim. Blogging and Democracy: Blogs in Malaysian Political Discourse. The Pennsylvania State University, 2009. 175-209. 14 March 2011.
4. Roger, Robin. Creating community and gaining readers through newspaper blogs. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2006. 8-17. 14 March 2011.
5. Wallsten, Kevin Jay. Public Opinion and the New, “New Media”: How Political Blogs Influence Journalists Politicians and the Mass Public. Berkeley: University of California, 2008.
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