Democracy.com: A Tale of Political Blogs and Content

Abstract

The debate about the role of political blogs in politics generally and its effect on democracy and participation in particular has deepened since the 2008 U.S. presidential election. While some studies warn that the Internet may undermine deliberation, and replicate patterns of homophily and polarization among blogs with the same political inclination, other studies emphasize the potential of the Internet to strengthen cross-ideological discourse and participation. This paper suggests, using a hybrid theoretical framework which acknowledges homophily and the power law distribution among political blogs, and at the same time exhibits the use of the Internet also as a cross-participation platform and as strengthening participation. For that purpose, this paper looks at 83 videos that went viral during the 2008 election and examines patterns of behavior of the top 50 political blogs (conservative and liberal) in respect these videos over a period of two years.