Ashley Johnson
Scholarly Article No. 1 Critique
COMM 3320
Ishida
March 2, 2008
Critique of “Mapping the blogosphere: Professional and citizen-based media in the global news arena”
1) Research topic and researcher(s): Mapping the blogosphere: Professional and citizen-based media in the global news arena. By: Reese, Stephen D.; Rutigliano, Lou; Kideuk Hyun; Jaekwan Jeong. Journalism, Jun2007, Vol. 8 Issue 3. Retrieved from Communication and Mass Media Complete, on March 2, 2008.
2) Rational of the study: To analyze the relationship between citizen-based and traditional journalistic parts of the emerging weblog zone, specifically analyzing six major news and political blogs and mapping the sites they link to and also looking at the way in which they refer to these links. The four research questions guiding this study are:
1. “To what extent do blogs link to the professional news media, and how are those references characterized?”
2. “How is political affiliation of blogs related to their linking to professional news media”
3. “How is political affiliation of blogs related to the affiliation of their linking choices?”
4. “How is political affiliation of blogs related to their linking to international sites and authors?”
3) Literature review:
· The Internet has expanded the amount of journalism available to the public.
· The Internet makes it possible for anyone to participate.
· Therefore “the online environment ‘deterritorializes’ news, such that the user, creator, and news subject need no longer share the same national frame of reference.”
· Because of this ‘deterritorialization’, the Internet breaks apart the previous relationship of the press system and the national community- this “…has a natural relationship with democracy, leading many to attach great hopes to the Internet’s potential for advancing more engaged and active citizenship around the world.”
· ‘Blogosphere’ comes from the ‘public sphere’ idea of Habermas, which is a “…way to think about the social ‘geography’ of public communication” and the place “…where public opinion emerges.”
· Journalism might support the conversation of the public.
· Research is looking at how news practices and professional identity are changing due to new technology.
· Looks at the move from closed traditional journalism to the new online open journalism that encourages dialogue from readers.
· “…globalization and technology have produced a broader and more fluid journalistic conversations, new global public sphere with shifting boundaries.
The authors’ research questions are based on three boundaries:
1. Professional
2. Political
3. Geographical
· Professional media is defined as having a claim to ‘authority’ and the command of economic resources available to media organizations.
· This professional media is looked at in contrast to the informal media of which the blogosphere belongs.
· Studies of political blogs showed liberal blogs linking mainly to other liberals and conservatives to other conservatives.
· The interest in geographical boundaries is in “…the potential for the online world to transcend national boundaries.
4) Research method: A study of the six most popular news and political weblogs for one week and the sites that these weblogs linked to in their postings.
5) Subject of the study: Six of the top rated new-related weblogs, three liberal and three conservative. The three liberal being: Talking Points Memo, Atrios, and Daily Kos. The three conservative being: Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, and Little Green Footballs.
6) Research findings:
· Although the distinction between traditional and new informal media remains, the authors found that the blogosphere “…relied heavily on professional news sites and stories by journalists associated with professional media organizations.”
· The authors found that the bloggers use the information in news accounts to “…form their own arguments, reinforce views, and challenge opponents” which they go on to say that we must look at them “…ironically as in some ways preserving and reinforcing professional norms of journalism as they disseminate content generated by traditional reporting practices.”
· The authors argue that these results show how this blogosphere “…promotes the circulation of public dialog not only by linking together other bloggers but also in anchoring their discussions to the stream of information, opinion, and analysis produced by the traditional, professional news media and by professional journalist.” Basically leading their readers to broaden their horizons and to read outside of their normal venues.
· The combination of traditional, professional and citizen dialogue found in the blogosphere is what expands the ‘public sphere’ past its original limits.
· The authors plan to “… evaluate this new zone not blog-by-blog, or whether it replaces a previously ‘professional’ zone, by in how it is incorporated into the larger public sphere and works to interconnect voices, both citizen and professional, so they may confront and engage each other.”
7) My position on this scholarly essay:
I thought that overall the study was a little vague. I think the experiment left open too many independent variables surrounding these weblogs open, and I do not feel that they clearly or completely answered their research questions.
Despite the lack of clarity and room for error, I think that the findings that the authors of this experiment did find were very interesting. I think the fact that they found out that many blogs use mainly professional new stories to form and adapt their opinions is somewhat of an eye opener. I think this shows that the “old media” will mostly likely never become obsolete to the “new media” of the blogosphere, which I think is somewhat contradictory to what most people are starting to believe.
I really liked the idea behind this article and I think it was extremely necessary research for those of us in communication because the Internet is such a new and amazing front for communication among people and has opened public communication, the news in particular, up to those who previously did not have a voice.
Although this article was a little hard to follow I think it was enlightening reading in respect to the probable upcoming communications studies that will be done about “new media.”
