The Blogosphere:
How a Once-Humble Medium Came to Drive Elite Media
Discourse and Influence Public Policy and Elections
Joel David Bloom
University of Oregon
University of Oregon
Oregon Survey Research Laboratory
Political Science Department
5245 University of Oregon
1284 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-5245
Eugene, OR 97403-1284
## email not listed ##
(541) 346-0891
http://www.uoregon.edu/~jbloom
Abstract: In December of 2002, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) resigned his position of
Senate Majority Leader under pressure from the media, his own caucus and the White
House. This pressure was the result of comments Lott made at a birthday party for
retiring Senator Strom Thurmond’s 100
th
birthday party in which Lott seemed to wax
nostalgic about segregation. But that’s not the whole story. Coming on a busy news
day, the story was pushed aside by other news and not initially covered by the
mainstream media. Kept alive, promoted, linked and sourced, among on-line
“bloggers” – writers of weblogs, or frequently updated web sites with links and
commentary – the mainstream media eventually came on board too. In this paper I
use the Lott incident as an example of growing blogger influence in American politics
and political communication.
Prepared for presentation at the 2
nd
Annual Pre-APSA Conference on Political
Communication: “Mass Communication and Civic Engagement,” and at the 2003
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 2003, in
Philadelphia, PA. This paper represents very preliminary research on the topic and
will be revised and expanded upon. Please check with author for updates before
citing.