c re a tiv e n d u s trie s i creativeindustries.qut.com Locating the Australian Blogosphere: Towards a New Research Methodology Dr Axel Bruns, Dr Jason Wilson, Barry Saunders, Tim Highfield Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia a.bruns, j5.wilson, b.saunders, [email protected]Lars Kirchhoff, Thomas Nicolai Institute for Media and Communication Management, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland lars.kirchhoff, [email protected]
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c r e a t i v e n d u s t r i e si
creativeindustries.qut.com
Locating the Australian Blogosphere: Towards a New Research Methodology
Dr Axel Bruns, Dr Jason Wilson, Barry Saunders, Tim HighfieldCreative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
‒ Research motivations:• identifying key sites and clusters
• tracing flow of information across the blogosphere
• exploring linkage between blogs and other sites
• measuring (political / thematic) fragmentation or interlinkage
• comparisons across national / disciplinary boundaries
‒ Broader questions:• shape of the online ‘public sphere’ / ‘public spherules’
• role of the blogosphere in overall mediasphere / society
• application of media effects theories (opinion leaders, two-step flow, …)
c r e a t i v e n d u s t r i e si
creativeindustries.qut.com
Looking More Closely
‒ Standard methodology:• find blogs (search, Technorati, specific blog platform, etc.)• identify links (on current page) crawl to linked pages repeat• capture (scrape) text and other details (not always included)• plot link network structure, correlate with blog content patterns
‒ Problems in blog mapping:• defining and identifying the population to be mapped• determining which links are relevant• method of plotting links, identifying blog clusters, etc.• correlating link network structure and blog themes• tracking changes over time
• want to slice data in different ways:∘ select blog activity for specific days, weeks, months∘ select blog content and links for specific blogs or blog clusters
‒ Analytical limitations:• patterns of interlinkage tell only part of the story
• maps provide only a temporary snapshot
• want to understand:∘ what clusters have in common∘ and how they change over time
c r e a t i v e n d u s t r i e si
creativeindustries.qut.com
Towards a New Approach‒ Process stages (Australian political blogs as test case):
• data gathering and processing∘ track large number of (broadly) political Australian blogs through RSS feeds∘ scrape blog content for newly posted entries∘ separate blog post content from ancillary materials / separate discursive links from other link types∘ (grow master list of blogs as required)
• content analysis∘ combine extracted blog post content (per blog, per cluster, per timeframe, …) ∘ automated analysis to identify key themes and keywords ∘ currently using Leximancer
• network analysis∘ combine extracted link information (overall, per timeframe, per cluster, …)∘ automated network mapping to identify lead blogs and clusters∘ currently using VOSON, Pajek, and UCINet
• combined analysis∘ e.g. comparative content analysis for lead blogs and clusters in the link network∘ e.g. correlation of blogosphere patterns with external factors (parallel themes in mainstream media,
etc.)
(First iteration operated November 2007 to January 2008, tracking 300-400 blogs)
c r e a t i v e n d u s t r i e si
creativeindustries.qut.com
Early Results
‒ Proof-of-concept study of selected lead blogs (11/2007-1/2008):The Other Cheek (political gossip) vs. Club Troppo (policy analysis)