GFW BLOG（功夫网与翻墙）

Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere

2008-04-07T01:29:00.000-07:00

作者：John Kelly, Bruce Etling

全文：http://tinyurl.com/4ht9y4

摘要：We used computational social network mapping in combination with human and automated content analysis to analyze the Iranian blogosphere. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that Iranian bloggers are mainly young democrats critical of the regime, we found a wide range of opinions representing religious conservative points of view as well as secular and reform-minded ones, and topics ranging from politics and human rights to poetry, religion, and pop culture. Our research indicates that the Persian blogosphere is indeed a large discussion space of approximately 60,000 routinely updated blogs featuring a rich and varied mix of bloggers. Social network analysis reveals the Iranian blogosphere to be dominated by four major network formations, or poles, with identifiable sub-clusters of bloggers within those poles. We label the poles as 1) Secular/Reformist, 2) Conservative/Religious, 3) Persian Poetry and Literature, and 4) Mixed Networks. (Click here for the map image.) The secular/reformist pole contains both expatriates and Iranians involved in a dialog about Iranian politics, among many other issues. The conservative/religious pole contains three distinct sub-clusters, two focused principally on religious issues and one on politics and current affairs. Given the repressive political and media environment, and high profile arrests and harassment of bloggers, one might not expect to find much political contestation in the blogosphere. However, we identified a subset of the secular/reformist pole focused intently on politics and current affairs and comprised mainly of bloggers living inside Iran, which is linked in contentious dialog with the conservative political sub-cluster. Surprisingly, a minority of bloggers in the secular/reformist pole appear to blog anonymously, even in the more politically-oriented part of it; instead, it is more common for bloggers in the religious/conservative pole to blog anonymously. Blocking of blogs by the government is less pervasive than we had assumed. Most of the blogosphere network is visible inside Iran, although the most frequently blocked blogs are clearly those in the secular/reformist pole. Given the repressive media environment in Iran today, blogs may represent the most open public communications platform for political discourse. The peer-to-peer architecture of the blogosphere is more resistant to capture or control by the state than the older, hub and spoke architecture of the mass media model.

How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere?

2008-01-01T03:49:00.000-08:00

作者：Kathy E. Gill

全文：http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf

摘要：This paper reviews ways to measure the influence of the blogosphere on public opinion and mass media. It covers anecdotes of stories becoming big in the blogosphere and then being (re)introduced into mass media. It reports on the traffic blogs receive and their integration into political and news sites. It also compares the relative ranking of blogs on websites like BlogStreet and Technorati.

Agenda–setting, opinion leadership, and the world of Web logs

2008-01-01T03:38:00.000-08:00

作者：Aaron Delwiche 来源：First Monday

全文：http://www.firstmonday.org/ISSUES/issue10_12/delwiche/index.html

摘要：More than 350 studies have explored the agenda setting hypothesis, but most of this research assumes a clear distinction between reporters and their readers. Web logs erode this distinction, facilitating participatory media behavior on the part of audiences (Blood, 2003). The activities of journalistically focused web log authors give us new ways to understand and measure the agenda setting process. While previous researchers have explored issue salience by focusing on audience recall and public opinion, web logs invite us to consider hyperlinks as behavioral indicators of an issue’s perceived importance. This paper tracks news stories most often linked to by web log authors in 2003, comparing the results to stories favored by traditional media. Arguing that web log authors construct an alternative agenda within the admittedly limited realm of the blogosphere, I note that their focus has shifted from technology to broader political issues. My findings support Chaffee and Metzger’s (2001) prediction that “the key problem for agenda-setting theory will change from what issues the media tell people to think about to what issues people tell the media they want to think about” (375).

Blogs and China Correspondence: How foreign correspondents covering China use blogs

2008-01-01T03:17:00.000-08:00

作者：Rebecca MacKinnon

全文：http://rconversation.blogs.com/WJEC.pdf

摘要：Recent research shows that journalists read blogs much more than the general public.This paper hypothesizes that journalists with specialized beats use blogs more heavily than general reporters. A survey of foreign correspondents who cover China indicates that blogs are especially useful to this group. This paper analyzes why blogs are so useful to China correspondents and calls for more comparative research so that the relationship between blogs and international news can be better understood.