Political Blogosphere

by Jerome Armstrong, Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 02:50:18 PM EST

There's a BlogPulse research paper (PDF) that was done on the blogosphere during the 2004 election. I'll have to spend a bit more time to really understand it; but since I'm a graphical understander much more than textual, I did get this:

The graphs represent the aggregate linkage going on leading up to the 2004 election. Reds (them) are the Republican bloggers, and Blues (us) are the Democratic bloggers. The full expanation of the graphs particulars are on page 9 of the PDF paper. Basically, the first graph connects dots (blogs) when there is strong linkage between them (+25 during the period), the second one where there is less stronger linkage (+5), and they've a 3rd map that includes all linkage that I've not included.

Between blogs then (not taking into consideration that diaries on #8DailyKos and #17MyDD serve to allow massive coordiantion and spreading of message), there's just a lot more coordination through linking among Republican than there has been with Democratic bloggers, at least on the surface of particular URL's. The other interesting thing I noted was that the blog by George Bush's campaign didn't even make the top 40-- now that's pitiful.

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27 Comments

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I'm not sure how to interpret this
More Dems blog about disparate, unconnected subjects?

The Repub blogosphere participates in group think to a greater degree?

One thing I'd like to measure is the directionality of the connections.  If there is an overall flow from a source node to every other node, one can determine how "top down" each network is.

by Teaser 2005-03-09 04:18PM | 0 recs
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It's been known for awhile...
...that much of what passes for the right wing blogosphere consists of endlessly linking to one another.

The liberal blogosphere, by contrast, tends to produce more original reporting and opinions.  Moreover, left-leaning blogs tend to be a little more independent from one another.

I don't think this means that the right side of the blog world is necessarily more coordinated.  More incestuous, to be sure, but not necessarily more cohesive.  The liberal blogs are all very aware of what each other are saying (the bigs, anyway), and link to each other in a flash when something big comes up.  The rest of the time, each covers what it's going to cover.  That means that the liberal side is both more rich in material and more diverse in opinion and expertise.  Less rigidly lockstep?  Sure.  But I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that such militant singlemindedness is not necessarily an advantage.

by jonweasel 2005-03-09 04:55PM | 0 recs
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Re: It's been known for awhile...
I don't think this means that the right side of the blog world is necessarily more coordinated.  More incestuous, to be sure, but not necessarily more cohesive.  The liberal blogs are all very aware of what each other are saying (the bigs, anyway), and link to each other in a flash when something big comes up.  The rest of the time, each covers what it's going to cover.  That means that the liberal side is both more rich in material and more diverse in opinion and expertise.  Less rigidly lockstep?  Sure.  But I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that such militant singlemindedness is not necessarily an advantage.

I think this has to do with the psychology of what makes one choose to be liberal and what makes one choose to be conservative.

While there can be some rigid left-wing ideologues and some thoughtful and tolerant conservatives,  generally speaking, conservatives prefer order and uniformity, liberals prefer diversity and openmindedness.

Therefore, right-wing blogs become an echo chamber. The purpose behind the blog is to rally behind a central idea, make it your own, be part of the group, and promote it. Right-wing blogs, like right-wing radio, and other forms of  right-wing media are ways for the masses to get the message. In return for their loyalty and acceptance of the message, the masses feel like they are part of a group, a team, a family, even. (Thus the emphasis on "family values" by those who seem to have little regard for them.)

On the other hand, left-wing blogs become a shouting match between the members. A while back, I made a post highly critical of what Chris had written. It came off harsher than I intended and he called me an asshole for it. Yet I didn't get banned (thank you). Discussion and debate, even heated debate, is what keeps left-wing blogs going, and I think we're stronger for it.

All and all, it should come as no surprise that right-wing and left-wing blogs behave differently.

by wayward 2005-03-10 02:34PM | 0 recs
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Part of Strategy?
How much of the linking to each other is simply part of a strategy to obtain higher rankings on search engine results?  And, if it is, is this a strategy that's worth adopting by Liberal blogs?
by bedobe 2005-03-09 05:03PM | 0 recs
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Re: Part of Strategy?
exactly my point. if the blue blogosphere were not so cliquish, they'd either do away with their blogrolls or create/encourage/support metablogrolls like the Progressive Bloggers Alliance or What She Said.

That's why the Repugs have been so successful online. I'm a homeschooling mom who happens to be an atheist and a progressive libertarian (go check ChrisNolan.com for a cogent definition) --so I don't fall into the category of homeschoolers described in the paper mentioned in the blog.

And that's why, when I went looking online for information about homeschooling, I found more information that was religious than secular --which I found quite shocking given that most people I met and spoke to about homeschooling were the crunchy granola types --not one was homeschooling for religious reasons. But on the net, it sure looks like it.

Progressives have to stop thinking about repugs as backward hill-billies because, when it comes to the politics of technology --and the technology of politics-- it's the so called liberals/progressives and Democrats who are the troglodytes.

by liza 2005-03-09 05:55PM | 0 recs
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It proves the blue blogosphere is more cliquish
But here's the kicker with this study : Aren't blogs supposed to be grassroots media? Then why are James Walcott, Wonkette and Michelle Malkin on that list?

Color me naive, but mass media writers, think tank consultants and corporate sponsored bloggers ought not to be weighed in with the actual grassroots.

And grok nows I like Wolcott, but he's in the same category as William Gibson, Dave Barry or the now defunct Noam Chomsky blog. They are mass media writer's that blog. No matter how to the left they are.

by liza 2005-03-09 05:36PM | 0 recs
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Could foretell the future, good for Dems
Dems don't need to link to everyone else because we are more fiercely independent and confident in our opinion.  This reminds me a little bit of cliques in High School.  The Jocks and everyone else.  Truth is that Jocks always travelled together and seem to echo the opionions of the alpha of the group.  These maps to me are examples of group behavior.

(Have not read the entire 16 page report)Further analysis: Notice that the Blue maps have a more evenly distributed major circles or alpha sites, the Reds have more medium level sites seemingly reporting to a giant one - 26 instapundit.  Everything seems to travel or link back to instapundit and some large arteries link to 31 Powerline.

Another graphical way to look at it is an airline connections map, they've got more connections, more importantly the Liberal Blogs offer me more Direct connections and less time to get the info I need.

Lastly about group psychology, the Republican Blogs might be linking to each other to feel more comfortable in larger numbers, less confident about their positions.  The most interesting map is the one on top of page 9. It could be that Mehlmann and Gilespie did reach out more to the middle more than we did.  That map could be a snapshot of the larger amoeba trying to gobble up the smaller one.  Don't let it happen.  Connect and reach out!

by neolib 2005-03-09 05:54PM | 0 recs
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Re: Could foretell the future, good for Dems
I disagree.

Repugs look at blogs, more so than static sites, as real estate. Linking to one another creates a tightly knit community and lowers the barrier for locking sites in with their message. It works brilliantly for framing attacks and going for the kill.

Look at how from Drudge and the Freeper site information is passed down at lighting speed into the red blogosphere. Once you have 10-15 sites hitting the same topic, Google does it's job. And if those 10-15 sites happen to be repugblogs, then they've won.

This is not rocket science. This is the law of links and Google ranking. That blue bloggers don't get it begs the question, why are they doing this in the first place. Do get a book deal and then bail? If this is really a movement, then we have to think tactically. How do you do so?

-- encourage building not just blogs but community blogs with platforms like Drupal, CivicSpace or Scoop. There is great potential in those MySQL databases.

-- Link and link generously. If possible, run an RSS aggregator on your site and invite people to add their feeds; making it easy for people to comment on other networked blogger's posts.

-- use the "nofollow" tag only sparingly; maybe for the sites you're fisking

-- METAs & FOAF still work. Use it.

-- Categories are a good thing. Use them widely. Tag, tag and tag some more. And if possible, ecourage the use of folksonomies in your blogs, diaries and comments. And allow live links on your comments as well.

-- Then link, quote and link some more.

It's not rocket science. It's just good blog networking.

by liza 2005-03-09 06:12PM | 0 recs
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Re: Could foretell the future, good for Dems
Awesome, I love the fire in your comment.  What you are saying is brilliant and should be written into all strategies for marketing, campaigning and your points must be adopted by more blogs as part of their FAQs-How to make each post count.

My primary point towards the end is to connect way more than we are doing.  That is the obvious conclusion from this study. Which, BTW, was done 2 months before the November election when all of us were busy running around trying to get Kerry elected.

How do we really make this into a movement and think tactically?  We must market-connect-link to everything that we possibly can. The difference in success between 2 companies that have similar products, is marketing and out-reach.  Meetup.com was an awesome idea but we need the next generation to go belly-to-belly with the public now, right now. The company that succeeds, works while the other guy is sleeping.  We have less than 2 years to gain more seats in Congress and less than 4 years to capture the white house.

We need your technical knowledge and a strategy to attack everything.

Don't worry the Jocks will not win, the Geeks shall inherit the earth and the vegans will survive because we are not susceptible to avian disease or mad cow.

by neolib 2005-03-09 06:49PM | 0 recs
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Sad, I suppose
I spend very little time surfing blogs that speak Right-winglish.  However, it surprises me to discover that Republicans are working in a more coherent, organized, unified way even on the blogosphere.  

Maybe it's because I discovered blogs through the Dean campaign and The Liquid List, but I thought blogs benefited Democrats more than Republicans.  Does this study prove this belief wrong?

by bluegrassroots 2005-03-09 05:56PM | 0 recs
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It proves nothing.
The study is ambiguous.  It only constrasts number of shared links.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Who knows?  And how would one evaluate this?
by Teaser 2005-03-09 06:44PM | 0 recs
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Sorry Liza for using clique
I was busy typing mine and did not see your post. I agree fully with your take.
by neolib 2005-03-09 05:59PM | 0 recs
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Re: Sorry Liza for using clique
No problem. I was just writing about this in a private email to a fellow blogger and Democrat. It's just frustrating. I'm in the lower level of the blogs in that study --I was included in several lists as an election blogger including Feedster, Technorati and the DNC 2004 blog. Do you think any of the top 20 Democrat bloggers link back to me? Nope. None. And people like me are doing the cheerleading and linking back and sending the traffic over.

I think it was Chris Bowers who wrote last year a post about blogs with stickiness. My blog does not have stickiness because it's more like a node --people find me before they find specific posts at MyDD, DailyKos, etc. I don't get the daily hundreds of thousands Kos gets but my blog (I'm in the 10-15K, mostly through RSS), but like 50-100 mid-level blogs like mine, I feed blogs like DailyKos and this here site. To not give back linklove or even acknowledge our contributions is a crime.

Which is why, after Kevin Drum posted a few weeks ago, "where are the women bloggers" question that pops-up every month or so, I've decided to take down from my blogroll "the big blogs". I'll still quote and will still link back to posts, but blogroll? Nope. There are more deserving, cluefull people out there.

I mean, if a top progressive male blogger can't name 5 progressive women bloggers, is this really a movement or is it just a clique of "the same old boys club" quoting each other?

Sorry I'm so irritable but it just needs to be said because it's akin to this recent post by Kos

Independent Publishers
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/8/114050/1607

It's the same hypocrisy, different media.

by liza 2005-03-09 06:36PM | 0 recs
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Re: Sorry Liza for using clique
Right on.  We started this movement, now we have to see it to its final conclusion. Look at all of the great technical leaps over the past 50 years, you got it, all or most progressive liberals. Give it up for SuSE, Debian and RedHat Linux. I guaruntee you mostly Dems use Linux because we favor our freedom.

How do we get more women blogging? You know come to think of it, if you can create a place for women to talk about what is going on, almost like an Oprah or Marth Stewart. Mainstream cool techie Girls!!! This is way more interesting than the stupid garbage on TV.

Your irritability is my inspiration. What is your blog?

by neolib 2005-03-09 07:04PM | 0 recs
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Re: Sorry Liza for using clique
I more interested in how it translates into action. So, if through BlogPac, we can get 10 bloggers together in each region, forming a BOD for action campaigns, then we've suddenly created 4 strong hubs. That's along the lines I'm thinking, and eventually, we can take it to the state level.
by Jerome Armstrong 2005-03-09 10:52PM | 0 recs
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Re: Sorry Liza for using clique
Mr. Armstrong thank you for bringing up this pdf, I am still reading it. I see what you and liza are saying and I am hopeful that we will figure out how this nascent movement carries forward. I will post some more specfics below later today. After I have had a chance to read all 16 pages of study. I would certainly recommend - 2 great books on Group mentality and organization: Kevin Kelly's "Out of Control", the new biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World. Steve Johnson's "Emergence" the connected lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and software.

I just finished Joe Trippi's "The Revolution will not be Televised". In the best sense of kicking butt, women like liza and her ideas could be the right way to go. Its simple and logical.

by neolib 2005-03-10 05:06AM | 0 recs
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Re: Sorry Liza for using clique
Hey Jerome,

I'm hacking a lung here and trying to run out a 3 day-old fever, but will write a diary on this and cross-post it on my blog as well.

Your idea is a step forward but devil is in the details, especially the little ones. There are a lot of little details to be covered by the blue blogosphere that would then reinforce coordinating efforts like BlogPac's.

Have you thought of holding an IRC or IM session on this? Skype? Face to face meetings?

by liza 2005-03-10 07:27AM | 0 recs
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its interesting
Kevin Drum has more
by aiko 2005-03-09 07:39PM | 0 recs
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We need a better network
Because right-wing blogs tend to be more business/revenue oriented (in my opinion) they naturally start to build larger networks to guide traffic through the system.

Also, they benefit from having a central source of agenda, policy info, and talking points (Karl Rove's fax machine)

I had always thought us lefties were on the cutting edge - imagine my surprise to find out that the knuckle-draggers had out-blogged us!

Here's a new blog focusing on writing with a different perspective: The Bloogeyman

Here's some recent posts from the blog:

The ethics problem in America

Italy's reaction to the hostage incident

Review of John Aravosis' (AMERICAblog) article in the LA Times

Gannongate: Who Got Gannon's Cannon?

help get the word out and the network ready for 2006!

by QuasiMotive 2005-03-09 08:29PM | 0 recs
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Re: We need a better network
Because right-wing blogs tend to be more business/revenue oriented (in my opinion) they naturally start to build larger networks to guide traffic through the system.

This is an excellent point you make and another reason why not taking into account the smaller blogs is doing them a disservice.

These blogrolls serve as a virtual ad revenue portal for those included. Those left out, are screwed. So what should be done? You could support the progressive netroots movement by treating the network of blogs as potential ad real estate.

I want to see progressive blogs treat each other as affiliates of the same political network. This way, it might be easier to negotiate ads across affiliates as opposed to having progressive bloggers fighting against each other for the same ad money.

That's just one tactical issue to look into for a better network.

by liza 2005-03-10 07:39AM | 0 recs
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We're #5! We're #5!
At least if dot size has any meaning.

If I am reading this correctly, it means that the liberal blogosphere has an even larger audience than the right-wing blogopshere than I thought. They share their audiences more than we do.

This also means they are better connected and coordinated. Oh well. I always suspected that anyway.

by Chris Bowers 2005-03-09 09:24PM | 0 recs
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Face to face
This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Pricniples Project conference in NYC, and it reenforced my belief, echoed earlier in the thread to a degree, that getting to know other activists/bloggers in the real world is vital to organizing ourselves. Besides checking the bigger liberal blogs, I mainly go to the blogs of people I have some connection to, and I assume that many others do the same. The same goes for activism- the group that I work most with is the one where I was able to make the most personal connections. Now that I have met and gotten to know other activists, through events like Drinking Liberally and the conference, the chances that I would want to work with them in the future is greatly increased.

So, to me one of the big things would be to get bloggers together every so often to meet and get to know each other (how about regional and national blogger conferences?). That way you're much more likely to think to yourself "I wonder what X is up to?", to go and check out there blog, and to link to it if you find anything interesting...

by Alex Urevick 2005-03-10 04:27AM | 0 recs
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Re: Face to face
This is what drives me insane --and what Chris Raab, of Afro-netizen discussed in

Leaving One's Comfort Zone
http://afronetizen.blogs.com/afronetizen/2005/01/leaving_ones_co.html

I'm here in NYC, in Manhattan nonetheless, and I had no idea this was happening. If organizers just new about State Writes [ http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/states-writes.htm ], and followed the leads by state, they'd have no excuse not to invite people from the state they're running these events.

This is why metablogging or meta-blogrolling is way more important for sites like MyDD to practice than the regular blogrolls they have at the moment.

by liza 2005-03-10 08:20AM | 0 recs
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Re: Face to face
Well- come on over to Drinking Liberally at Rudy's on Thursdays. You'll meet lots of bloggers, activists, and other interesting lefties, and you can get crunk (or drunk if you prefer) at the same time! You never know who will stop by on any given week.

Hope to see you there!

by Alex Urevick 2005-03-10 09:05AM | 0 recs
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Re: Face to face
I am guessing you guys are already crinking it up! Too bad, wish I was there to meet all of you. I am in the city Friday to Monday. Was wondering where and when else do you meet?
by neolib 2005-03-10 12:29PM | 0 recs
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Re: Face to face
AW Fudge. Thursdays are not good for me BUT, I just started talks with the people at the Progressive Blogs Alliance to co-host meetups here in the city. I am already co-hosting the Brown Bloggers Meetups

Coloring the blogosphere : Join the Brown Bloggers series
http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/002850.html
http://blog.meetup.com/317/events/?eventId=4297627&action=detail

and am working out the details for the first Blogging Sheroes Meetup here in NYC

Blogging Sheroes
http://blog.meetup.com/322/about/

I consider these to be a bit more social in nature, just like your Drinking Liberally meetings. I think Jerome is talking about something a bit more serious and strategy oriented.

Which begs the question to Jerome : Can you be a bit more specific about what you talked about BlogPac?

I personally don't think all blogs have or should have to serve a political fundraising purpose. What I feel is needed is for progressive bloggers to get to know their peers in order to create real networks online and off.

by liza 2005-03-10 01:44PM | 0 recs
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GWB's blog not on list....
Not surprising in the least. I recall GWB's campaign blog being completely blocked to IP's originating outside the 50 states. Paranoia anyone?
by Vote Hillary 2008 2005-03-10 04:56AM | 0 recs

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