GOR 10 Presentation

30
German Language A-List-Blogs: Reinforcement of the Mainstream Media Agenda or a Challenge to it? Martin Zuber, M.A.

description

 

Transcript of GOR 10 Presentation

Page 1: GOR 10 Presentation

German Language A-List-Blogs: Reinforcement of the Mainstream Media

Agenda or a Challenge to it?

Martin Zuber, M.A.

Page 2: GOR 10 Presentation

Research Agenda

 What are A-List-Blogs?  What role do they play in the Mainstream Media

Agenda Setting Process? (Literature Review)  Criticism: Recepients not taken into account  Research Questions  Data  Methods  Results  Added Value

Seite 2

Page 3: GOR 10 Presentation

What are A-List-Blogs?

Figure 1.: Top 100 most linked weblogs on Technorati effective 24.01.03 Source: http://kottke.org/03/02/weblogs-and-power-laws

Seite 3

Page 4: GOR 10 Presentation

What are A-List-Blogs?

Seite 4

  German language A-List-Blogs like netzpolitik.org or bildblog.de have more than 30.000 visits per day. (Interview with Beckedahl and Niggermeier (2009) on http://philipbanse.de/)

Figure 2: Connection of public and relevance. Adapted from: Katzenbach 2008, 108

Page 5: GOR 10 Presentation

Seite 5

The Agenda Setting Hypothesis

 “The power of the news media to set a nation’s agenda, to focus public attention on a few key public issues, is an immense and well documented influence.” (Wallensten 2007, 568)

Page 6: GOR 10 Presentation

The Role of A-List-Blogs in the Agenda Setting Process?

First Perspective  A-List-Blogs are an reinforcement of the

mainstream media agenda because they tend to rely primarily on established media outlets for their information. (cf. Adamic and Glance 2005, Haas 2005, McKenna 2007)

Seite 6

Page 7: GOR 10 Presentation

The Role of A-List-Blogs in the Agenda Setting Process?

Second Perspective  A-List-Blogs emphasize the remarkable

information in the blogosphere by linking to posts of small blogs. Hence A-List-Blogs are challenging the dominance of mainstream media by linking to alternative news providers. (cf. Dezner and Farrell 2004, Holler et al 2008)

Seite 7

Page 8: GOR 10 Presentation

Criticism: Recepients are not taken into account

 The existing studies only investigate the content provided by the A-List-Blogs

Seite 8

Page 9: GOR 10 Presentation

Seite 9

Page 10: GOR 10 Presentation

Criticism: Recepients are not taken into account

 To assess the role of A-List-Blogs, we need to analyze the effects on the audience

Seite 10

Page 11: GOR 10 Presentation

Research Questions

 1. Is the content provided by A-List-Blogs an reinforcement of the mainstream media agenda or a challenge to it?

 2. Do the recipients prefer the mainstream media or the alternative issues?

Seite 11

Page 12: GOR 10 Presentation

The Data

 K. Burton, A. Java, and I. Soboroff. The ICWSM 2009 Spinn3r Dataset. In Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2009), San Jose, CA, May 2009.

 A set of blog posts from 1 August 2008 – 31 October 2008

 All Languages  About 130 Gigabytes

Seite 12

Page 13: GOR 10 Presentation

Seite 13

Page 14: GOR 10 Presentation

Comparison of total link count on A-List-Blogs: Spinn3r vs. Technorati (03.12.08)

Seite 14

Correlation: -> .619 Level of significance: -> 1%

Page 15: GOR 10 Presentation

Comparison of links on A-List-Blogpost: Spinn3r versus rivva (14.08.09)  vhhoi

Seite 15

Correlation: -> .721 Level of significance: -> 1%

Page 16: GOR 10 Presentation

Methods

 Which are the German language A-List-Blogs?  Sifry (2006): „The Very High Authority Group“ are blogs

with more than 500 links in the last 6 months  www.deutscheblogcharts.de  Within this time frame: 12

German language Blogs 500+ links

Seite 16

Page 17: GOR 10 Presentation

Methods: Content Analysis

 Time frame: 1 – 14 August and 12 – 25 September 2008 Two weeks in every month – from Friday to Thursday

 Found 852 posts in the data set for this time frame (unfortunately no post of nerdcore.de -> only 11 A-List-Blogs in the sample)

 Analyzed a 50%-random sample -> 30 posts used for the pretest -> 411 Posts

 Analysis unit: A-List-Blog post

Seite 17

Page 18: GOR 10 Presentation

Methods: Content Analysis: Coding Frame

 To identify which posts are based on mainstream media information (RQ 1)

1. Coded the links to online mainstream media pages (intercoder reliability = .86)

2. Coded references to offline mainstream media sources (intercoder reliability = .92)

Seite 18

Page 19: GOR 10 Presentation

Methods: Hyperlink analysis

 To analyze which content is preferred by the recipients (RQ 2)

-> Searching Posts in the data set, which are linking to the A-List-Posts

Found -> 263 links -> 1 post got 16 links -> The most got 0 links

Seite 19

Page 20: GOR 10 Presentation

Results: Content Analysis

 Just 106 posts (25.8%) are based on mainstream media sources. 305 posts (74.2%) have alternative or no sources.

 Answer RQ 1: Looking only at the content provided by the A-List-Blogs -> we would suggest, that they are more a challenge than an reinforcement for the mainstream media agenda

Seite 20

Page 21: GOR 10 Presentation

Results: Content Analysis

Seite 21

Page 22: GOR 10 Presentation

Results: Content Analysis

Seite 22

Page 23: GOR 10 Presentation

Results: Content Analysis

Seite 23

Page 24: GOR 10 Presentation

Results: Hyperlinkanalysis

 Posts without mainstream media source -> Mean = .59 links

 Posts with mainstream media source -> Mean= 1.14 links

 This difference is significant on 5%-Level.

 Answer RQ2: The blogger (recipients) tend to link more to posts with mainstream media content.

Seite 24

Page 25: GOR 10 Presentation

Why?

Seite 25

Page 26: GOR 10 Presentation

Results: Hyperlink analysis

 Reception studies

-> News factors indicate relevance (cf. Eidlers 1997)

 News Value Research

-> News in mainstream media -> biased -> extend News Values

Seite 26

Page 27: GOR 10 Presentation

Results

Seite 27

Page 28: GOR 10 Presentation

Added Value

  It is important to include the audience to decide which role the A-List-Blogs play in the agenda-setting process

 Though A-List-Blogs present more issues from alternative sources -> the small blogs tend to link more often to issues of mainstream media sources

 The reason for that -> usual mechanism of reception   Issues form mainstream media contain more news

factors

Seite 28

Page 29: GOR 10 Presentation

Q & A

Seite 29

Page 30: GOR 10 Presentation

Literature

Adamic, L. and N. Glance. (2005). "The political blogosphere and the 2004 presidential election." Retrieved 03.08.2009, from http://www.blogpulse.com/papers/2005/AdamicGlanceBlogWWW.pdf.

Banse, P. (2009). "Interview mit Markus Beckedahl." Retrieved 10.03.2010, from http://philipbanse.de/wp/.

Banse, P. (2009). "Interview mit Stefan Niggemeier." Retrieved 10.03.2010, from http://philipbanse.de/wp/.

Drezner, D. W. and H. Farrell. (2004). "The Power and Politics of Blogs." Retrieved 13.10.2008, from http://www.danieldrezner.com/research/blogpaperfinal.pdf.

Eilders, C. (1997). Nachrichtenfaktorenund Rezeption. Eine empirische Analyse zur Auswahl und Verarbeitung politischer Information. Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag

Haas, T. (2005). "From "Public Journalism" to the "Public´s Journalism"? Rhetoric an reality in the discourse on weblogs." Journalism Studies 6: 387-396.

Holler, S., S. Vollnhalls, et al. (2008). Focal Points und Journalisten - Bedingungen für den Einfluss der Blogosphäre. Kommunikation, Partizipation und Wirkungen im Social Web. Grundlagen und Methoden: Von der Gesellschaft zum Individuum. A. Zerfaß, M. Welker and J. Schmidt. Köln, Herbert von Halem Verlag: 94-111.

Katzenbach, C. (2008). Weblogs und ihre Öffentlichkeiten. Motive und Strukturen der Kommunikation im Web 2.0. München, Verlag Reinhard Fischer.

McKenna, L. (2007). "Getting the word out: Policy bloggers use their soap box to make change." Review of Policy Research 24: 209-229.

Wallensten, K. (2007). "Agenda Setting and the Blogosphere: An Analysis of the Relationship between Mainstream Media and Political Blogs." Review of Policy Research 24: 567-587.

Seite 30