Online Mainstream Media and Weblogs: Competing or Complementary Publics / Dr. Jan Schmidt

By Dr. Jan Schmidt

In October 2007, the leading blog search engine Technorati tracked more than 100 million blogs worldwide. Comparing the various emerging country- or language-specific blogospheres and their relation to issues of free speech is beyond the scope of this essay, because this would require a systematic and thorough analysis of media systems, levels of internet diffusion and legal as well as cultural frameworks. Thus, the following remarks will outline and discuss two general ideas that are not culture-specific, but pertain to general structural principles of the relation of online Mainstream Media (MSM) and blogs: The first idea is that MSM and blogosphere do compete for attention on the Internet, but are based on different practices for selecting, publishing and referencing information. The second idea is that with the rise of blogs “personal publics” emerge on the Internet that complement (rather than compete with) mass-mediated publics and open up new channels of expression and interaction.

The starting point for the analysis is the observation that both MSM and the blogosphere make certain information public, that is accessible to audiences of varying size. In both cases, these publics emerge as a result of individual selection, publishing and referencing/linking practices, but the elements of these practices differ in various respects (see table 1 for an overview).

Table 1: Differences in journalistic and blogging practices

Source: Adapted from Wall, Melissa (2005): ‚Blogs of war’. Weblogs as news. Journalism, 6(2), 153-172.

The emerging publics differ not only in their constituting practices, but there is also a great disparity in their size. They range from mass-mediated publics which usually reach a large audience, and topical publics provided by specialized media as well as by popular bloggers, to personal publics of bloggers who share thoughts and experiences with (mostly) small numbers of regular readers. This expansion of publicly available information amplifies a basic problem of information management: How to find relevant information within a seemingly boundless sea of events and sources? Traditional mass media have mainly relied on professional journalists who act as gatekeepers, selecting stories to report on, based on news factors. While professional journalism does and will not vanish on the Internet, its contribution for channelling attention gets complemented by additional filtering mechanisms:

1. The wisdom of google: Search engines combine keyword search with criteria like update frequency or the number of other sites pointing to a specific page. Since blogs fulfill both criteria, their content is often ranked relatively high, sometimes even before similar content that is published on MSM websites.
2. The wisdom of the crowd: Tools like Technorati [include link to http://www.technorati.com] or Digg [include link to http://www.digg.com/] assist information management by automatically aggregating selections or ratings of other users. Thus, rankings of popular topics emerge without specific editorial control.
3. The wisdom of your own network: Technical innovations, most notably RSS feeds, and the corresponding feed readers make it possible for every user to customize his/her own news repertoire based on specific and personal informational needs.

Identifying these different principles of information management does not imply that mass-media publics and personal publics are competing rivals. They rather overlap and complement each other, mainly due to two trends.

First, blogs are increasingly used by MSM and professional journalists as additional communication channels. For example, renowned print publications such as the “Jerusalem Post” or the Berlin-based “tageszeitung” (taz) feature blogs that are either written by editors or prominent guest authors on their online sites. While not all of these MSM blogs receive the same amount of comments by readers, at least in principle, they offer opportunities for audience feedback that is more rapid and direct than the traditional “letter to the editor”.

Second, processes of mutual agenda setting between MSM and the blogosphere can be observed. Professional journalists increasingly watch and cite blogs as additional or alternative sources for news and commentary on current events. On the other hand, a lot of blogs refer to, comment on and further diffuse information and stories that have originally been published by MSM. Figure 1 uses incoming links to measure the popularity of mass media outlets compared to blogs. It shows that the sites most linked to by blogs are not other blogs, but rather sites such as the “New York Times”, cnn.com or news.yahoo.com.

Figure 1: Ranking of MSM and Blogs by incoming links from the blogosphere

Source: Sifry, Dave (2007): The State of the Live Web, April 2007. In: Sifry’s Musings [Weblog], April 5, 2007. Online: http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html

The most important argument for the complementary functions of MSM and the blogosphere, however, lies in recognizing that blogs usually don’t aim at reaching a large audience (although some do). Rather, bloggers use the format for identity management and relationship management – in other words, presenting oneself, one‘s experiences and one’s opinions to readers who most often are personally acquainted with the author. Through links and comments, social networks are articulated and expanded upon which provide “social capital” that can be used, for example, for information dissemination, the strengthening of solidarity within certain (sub-)cultural groups, or the provision of socio-emotional assistance. These functions can be exemplified through “War Blogs” which focus on subjective impressions and eyewitness accounts from regions with military conflicts, thus lending a „personal face” to events. Some excerpts from war blogs dealing with the Israeli-Lebanese conflicts show the content variety:

• „A live blog from an Israeli bunker via laptop and wifi provides a unique and unprecedented insight into the rapidly escalating situation in the middle east. Experience the events thru the eyes of the people who live them, and perhaps get an idea of how it’s really like over here. This is much more human and accurate than the major news channels.” (http://israelibunker.blogspot.com/)
• „This blog was created to honor the memory of Lebanese heroes of all sects who were assassinated for their patriotic stands. May God bless their souls and bless Lebanon.” (http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/)
• „Hello Lebanon, hello Israel. I don’t know what will come next, but I was thinking to myself_ maybe we could take advantage of blog power and open a channel to…all” (http://www.notes.co.il/benbasat/20968.asp)
• „Beirut update. war diaries of a 30-year old woman… with love from Beirut.” (http://www.beirutupdate.blogspot.com/)

While some war blogs might be subject to control and censorship (e.g., the US military routinely monitors blogs of their military personnel), most open an unfiltered perspective on daily life in conflict regions. This can include partisan viewpoints as well as attempts for intercultural understanding. However, due to the general nature of the blog format (a regularly updated website which allows comments on individual postings), they usually foster conversation and dialogue, thus providing information that might not be available through MSM.
To summarize the points made in this brief essay: MSM and blogosphere both contribute to publics, since they make information accessible for others. However, they apply different criteria for filtering, publishing and linking information: While MSM provide general and (most often) objective information to a wide audience, the blogosphere provides specific, i.e. personalized information to (most often) small audiences. Blogs not only increase opportunities for information management, but also allow for identity management and relationship management, thus fostering the emergence of social networks which provide social capital to their users. Since both spheres of public communication are interconnected through processes of mutual agenda setting, they complement (rather than replace) each other.