Scholarly Article Critique 1

Jennifer Fairbanks
Comm. 3320
Ishida
First Scholarly Article Critique
Sept. 29, 2007
Critique of Stephen Reese Article

Research topic and researcher(s)
Mapping the blogosphere: Professional and citizen-based media in the global news arena, by Stephen Reese, et. Al. in Journalism, 8 (3), 2007, pp. 235-261. Retrieved from EBSCO database: Communication and Mass Media, on September 29, 2007.

Rationale of the study
The object of this study was to analyze patterns in both the citizen-based and the professional journalist components of weblogs. This includes content analysis of major news/political blogs and the sites they link to; international and ideological pattern of linking; and whether blogs engage a cross-national dialog across political lines. The first research question is meant to find out the extent that blogs link to professional news media and how the references are characterized. The second is to evaluate how the political affiliations of blogs relate to the linkage to professional news media and of their linking choice. The last research question asked by the author is how the political affiliation of blogs relates to their linking to international sites and authors.

Literature review
Shifting Boundaries
·The migration of news and information to an online platform has disrupted old patterns of reading and changed the relationships between audience and news writers.
·The online environment ‘deterritorialized’ news.
·World publics organize around issues and political affinities rather than geographic location.
·The extent and shape of the organization is unclear to the researcher.
·Journalism ought to help encourage and amplify the conversation of the public.
·The blogosphere as a conversation distributed more broadly across citizens and journalists.
·Citizens can now hold those conversations among themselves and amplify conversations among journalists.
·Technology has altered the journalism profession itself.
·Journalism has been distributed and interlinked more fluidly with citizen communication.
·Most conceptual boundary in blogs is between professional media and more informal (citizen-based).
·More walls around professional content including registration or paid service and have a journalist code.
·Creates ‘balkanized’ subgroups that form around any idea of interest.
·Readers of blogs and sources can be located anywhere, open to crossing international borders.


Research Method
The researcher used a network-informed content analysis. When analyzing they identified recent archived content for coding. The researcher did a post census for each blog and identified the characteristics of the network formed by the outbound links from primary blogs. One thing the study did not include was post comments since they were inbound and do not broaden the network. The study was structured around the main blog posters and the sites they refer to. To code the material, a sample of the content was reviewed and then developed into a measurement scheme. The bases of measurements include: unit type, site type, tone, site/author, and geographic location.

Subject of study
This study focused on six popular individual or small group associated blogs that were primarily devoted to news and politics from both liberal and conservative perspectives. The blogs chosen had established authoritative reputations and served as a gateway to a larger network. The selected liberal sites were Talking Points Memo, Atrios, and Daily Kos. The conservative sites chosen were Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, and Little Green Footballs.

Research Findings
Blog Consistency
·Found a total of 410 posts among the six blogs.
·Instapundit logged with the most (114) and Andrew Sullivan with the least (23)--probably due to a partial hiatus that week.
·Only 34 posts had no links within them at all.
·154 posts had two or more links, which supports the research treatment of those blogs as components of and gateways to a larger cyber network.
·Most blog posts either assembled material from elsewhere instead of providing original information. The blogs included general comments or conducted some analysis on the material.
·Only a ‘handful’ of posts could be defined as on-the-scene observations.
·Some linking units were dead-ends.
·33.5% of references are to other blogs.
·47.6% of references are to the professional news media—much of which are to news and editorial sites.
·Political affiliation is not strongly related to linking.
·Conservative blogs refer more to blogs than liberal ones do.
·With the nature of the linking content, there is again a significant reliance on both straight news stories and opinion.
·Traditional news media and professional journalists play an important role within this network.
How the Blogs are Linked
·The main referral style consistent across the links with all six blogs was to simply reference the link (84.2%).
·Some posts were explicitly supportive or attacking the source.
·There was little direct attack on sites or news organizations themselves from conversation blogs.
·Professional news is referenced often, and typically taken at face value and used to develop larger points.
Personalizing the Network
·Almost half of the authored ‘units’ are citizens—almost the same proportions are affiliated with the professional news media.
·Serve to direct readers to a broader base of news and commentary beyond ideological categories.
·Of the cases sampled, 92.7% of the links accounted for were to the US.
·92% of the authors were in the US.
·Little Green Footballs was the least likely to lead back to US-based sites.
My position on this scholarly essay
I feel the strengths of this article are the weblogs they’ve used. Using the popular ones would seem to give a more realistic view at the rest of the blogs out there. The writing style is also very clear and not cluttered with a lot of scientific words or descriptions. If someone was just interested in one certain part of the research, they could easily find it and comprehend it. The blogs that were chosen are also representing two political sides evenly so that a reader may not feel as if its one sided.
However, the fact that there are only two variances to the blogs they chose leaves me wondering if there are other news or political blogs out there because there is no mention of them within the article. Using only six blogs may not have been a sufficient amount. Also the research revolved mostly around the links in the blogs, and not the contents of the blogs themselves. I think it would’ve been a better article if the research would have talked more about the differences in contents, i.e. if US-based blogs or authors posted more on US issues than outside the US. I would have liked to have seen that discussed in depth since the title of the article mentions the global news arena.
The research results definitely supported the rationales of the study. Although the research period seemed relatively short, the information and statistics retrieved from the collected data is complete and well identified. I feel that the research article as a whole is very agreeable. Even if the data would’ve been collected for a longer period of time or had more blogs included in the research—the results would have probably been the same based on the criteria the researchers were looking for.