ELECTIONS OR SELECTIONS ? BLOGGING THE NIGERIAN 2007 GENERAL ELECTIONS
Presley A. Ifukor
University of Osnabrueck, Germany
Email: ## email not listed ##
1. INTRODUCTION
The late 1990s ushered to the World Wide Web a new wave of personal publishing. Weblogs (or blogs) are commonly
defined based on the thematic focus of an enquiry. Weblogs have been defined, for instance, as “personal “diary-like”
format websites enabled by easy to use tools and open for everyone” (Efimova & Fiedler, 2004); “webpage on which
the author publishes pieces with the intention to start conversation” (Wijnia, 2004); “frequently updated website
consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order” (Walker, 2003); “a series of archived Internet posts
typically characterized by brief texts entered in reverse chronological order and generally containing hypertext links to
other sites recommended by the author” (Nardi et al, 2004b); and “frequently updated websites, usually personal, with
commentary and links” (de Moor & Efimova, 2004). What cuts across all blogs which differentiates weblogs from other
forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is the format: reverse chronological journaling.
The basic features of a weblog, outlined by Gill (2004), include:
Reverse chronological journaling (format);
Regular, date-stamped entries (timeliness);
Links to related news articles, documents, blog entries within each entry (attribution);
Archived entries (old content remains accessible);
Links to related blogs (blogrolling);
RSS or XML feed (ease of syndication);
Passion (voice).
Blogging, therefore, is the act of writing online journals to chronicle and communicate one's thoughts (on issues of
personal interests, events and news) to either a specific target audience or the wider reading public. Blogging is also a
novel form of grassroots citizen journalism and “a way to shape democracy outside the mass media and conventional
party politics” (Gillmor, 2003 [cited in Nardi et al, 2004c]). The authors of weblogs are known as webloggers (or
bloggers). Politically, weblogs serve as a medium for socialization and grassroots mobilization.
Grouping weblogs into categories, Herring et al (2005) classify blogs as belonging into one of three major types: filters,
1 / 20
Page 1 of 20 
Convention