Blogging and Social Media

By Polly Edwards

Student number:3301125

Reading

Bruns, A and Adams, DA, 2009, ‘Mapping the Australian blogosphere’ in A. Russell and N. Echchaibi, (eds.) International blogging: identity, politics and networked publics, New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group, pp. 85-109. ®

Mapping the Australian political blogosphere

Key Role of political blogging:

Raising controversial political issues

Construct and distribute information

Allow expression as discussion on topics

Politicians are able to connect and interact with the public

Political impact on campaigns

What is political blogging to you?

Political Blog

freedom of speech

Right wing

Left wing

power

elections

impact

war

debate

What are the first words you think of when you hear political blog?

Australia

• Left wing

• Shows shifts in of political debate

on specific issues

• Polarization on Specific Issues

• Pundit blogger

Old and new ways of public communication

Old Way NEW Way

Egypt • Dangers of political blogging

• Prison

• Refuge/ Hiding

• Loss of Physical Freedom

Why continue blogging ???????

Class Discussion

Does political Blogging have an impact?

Who is being targeted with these blogs? (educated people non educated, what age group)

Does it influence peoples mind set?

Does it make people feel more in touch with having a real say on issues?

Can you give me examples of how this could work for or against an issue or politician?

UK • Only started to gain importance • Still new and developing

Slowly gaining impact.

Conclusion

Online Resources

Australian Political Blog

Political Blog is a source for finding political blogs supporting

different political parties. Discussing issues from the different

political views. Allowing people to join with people who think in

either a similar or different manner.

http://www.list-directory.info.au

The UK Political Blog Guide (by Tim Ireland)

This guide gives the reader and all round idea of the current

situation of political blogging within the UK.

http://www.bloggerheads.com/blog_guide/

Online Resources

Where is Raed?

Samuel Pax (Baghdad blogger) blog discusses the Iraq

and US impact and influence. Heated political blogging

up to 2004.

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

The Huffington Post

This is more of an internet news paper containing news

blogs video community.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Relevant Reading Bruns, A and Adams, DA, 2009, ‘Mapping the Australian blogosphere’ in A. Russell and N. Echchaibi, (eds.)

International blogging: identity, politics and networked publics, New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group, pp. 85-

109. ®

Ackland, R and Gibson, R , 2005, ‘Mapping political party networks on the WWW: How active are the far right?

Mimeograph’, The Australian National University. Available at: acsr.anu.edu.au/sta ff/ackland/papers/far right

political networks.pdf.

Drezner, D and Farrell, H, 2004, ‘The power and politics of blogs’. Paper presented at the 2004 American

Political Science Association.

Adamic, LA and Glance, N 2005,’ The political blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. election: divided they blog’,

International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, New York: Association for Computing

Machinery pp.36-43.

Ferguson, R and Griffiths, B, 2006, ‘Thin Democracy? Parliamentarians, Citizens and Influence of Blogging on

Political Engagement’, Oxford Press, 59 (2), pp. 366-374.

Gill, KE, 2004,’How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere?’ WWW2004, May 17–22, New York, NY

USA.

Coleman, S and Wright, S, 2008, ‘Political blogs and representative democracy’, Information Polity,13, pp.1-2.