Introduction
Although the term “blog” (which refers to a regularly updated personal web site with
posts appearing in reverse chronological order)
has been around since 1997, political blogging
seems to be a more recent phenomenon. According to most accounts of the history of blogging,
politically oriented blogs first emerged after the events of September 11, 2001 – as people turned
to blogs to both express their feelings about the terrorist attacks on America and to locate
information not available in the mainstream media (Scott, 2004). In 2002, many of the bloggers
who were turned on to blogging as a result of September 11
th
began blogging about the potential
for a war with Iraq. Some of these political bloggers, such as Instapundit, Daily Kos, and
AndrewSullivan.com, began to attract wide readerships as a result of their discussions of
American domestic and foreign policy. In fact, some of these so-called “A-list” blogs (i.e. blogs
that receive a high number of “hits” and incoming links) became so popular that many political
elites and traditional media institutions began to adopt the form themselves. In fact, by 2004
blogging had become so mainstream that all of the major presidential candidates – ranging from
Howard Dean to George Bush – had started their own blogs and both of the major political
parties had granted press credentials to political bloggers to cover their conventions.
evidence suggests that the mass public has been taken in by all of this high profile blogging.
According to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project,
1
There are countless definitions of what a blog is. According to Drezner and Farrell (2004), for example, a blog is
“a web page with minimal to no external editing, providing on-line commentary, periodically updated and presented
in reverse chronological order, with hyperlinks to other online sources.” According to Mortensen and Walker (2002)
blogs are “frequently updated websites, usually personal, with commentary and links.” On her blog, “The
Professional-Lurker,” Lois Ann Scheidt defines a blog as, “A weblog is a frequently modified website that allows
updating with items that are grouped primarily by the time and/or date of posting. Entries usually appear in reverse
chronological order. Contents of the weblog may be available publicly or through restricted access. Weblogs may
also utilize special software designed for this implementation.” McKenna and Pole (2004) define blogs as "web
pages that are regularly updated, operated by one person or a small group of people and developed for little to no
cost. Individual entries or posts are chronologically updated like a diary with the most recent posts viewed first."
2
For a good history of weblogs see Blood (2000) and Blood (2003).
3
The credentialed bloggers posted their entries at www.conventionbloggers.com for the Republican National
Convention and at www.cyberjournalist.net for the Democratic National Convention.
4
For more details on this study see http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP blogging data.pdf.
2
Convention