Studien zum Einfluss von US-Bloggern mit verhaltenen Ergebnissen

--- Vom Pew Internet & American Life Project gibt es neue Studien zum Einfluss von Blogs und die so genannten Impact-Blogs. Da ist zum einen ein Report zum Einfluss des Internet allgemein und der Blogger auf die US-Präsidentschaftswahlen 2004: Did internet use make a difference in the 2004 presidential race? Yes. The most successful campaigns relied on it to gain advantages over their competitors. The numbers of adult Americans who relied on the internet to learn about the campaigns, to help make up their minds, to help others make up theirs, and to register and vote is simply too large relative to the final margin to think otherwise. Aus dem Report selbst: 24% say they went most often to get campaign news to candidate Web sites, sites that specialize in politics, issue-oriented Web sites, government Web sites, and a smattering of other sources such as blogs or non-mainstream news sites. So weit, so gut also.

Ein zweiter Pew-Report mit dem Titel Buzz, Blogs, and Beyond untersucht die "Macht der Blogs" genauer und kommt dabei zu recht vorsichtigen Schlussfolgerungen: A blog is a remarkably suitable place for buzz to form. A blogger can spark conversation with choice comments on documents drawn from the internet, and the conversation can build through the tools which make the blogosphere possible. But for a conversation to acquire the intense simultaneity of buzz, and for buzz to register with force in public affairs, requires a number of other factors to be present, few of which are likely to be at the disposal of a single blogger, or even a blogging collective, ready to activate at will. We are not ready to delineate those buzz and forceful buzz factors. We think that they have something to do with location within the mediascape (the general idea behind our blog-positioning hypothesis), and something to do with narrative fit as perceived by voices in all four channels, and as enacted by the players cast in the crucial roles (the general idea behind the notion of the incriminating meme in Rathergate). Noch könne man also nicht sagen, ob da eine neue "Fünfte Gewalt" in der Blogosphäre entsteht oder nicht.

Die New York Times geht anscheinend eher von der letzteren Hypothese aus: According to a preliminary study - the first rigorous look at the influence wielded by political blogs during the 2004 presidential campaign - bloggers are not always the kingmakers that pundits sometimes credit them with being. They can, it seems, exert a tremendous amount of influence - generate buzz, that is - but only under certain circumstances. ... To analyze Web log buzz, the study zeroed in on a few dozen political blogs, from left-leaning forums like Daily Kos and AmericaBlog to conservative ones like Instapundit and Power Line, as well as middle-of-the road sites like BuzzMachine and Wonkette. All were "filter blogs," or blogs that comment on - and link to - content found elsewhere on the Web, according to an emerging taxonomy of the form. BuzzMetrics tracked the frequency with which "buzz topics" - Mary Cheney, the Osama bin Laden tape and so forth - appeared in the last two months of the campaign, not just on blogs but also on other "channels": the mainstream media, official campaign statements and other Internet forums like newsgroups. ... on issues like Iraq, weapons of mass destruction or the military draft, the Pew study found the chatter profile to be mixed, with buzz originating from several information channels. In instances in which blogs took the lead, such as the mysterious bulge that appeared on President Bush's back during the first debate (a radio receiver, some liberal blogs posited), they were often unable to get other channels to follow. The CBS News scandal, in which the network based a critical report on President Bush on what turned out to be forged Vietnam-era documents relating to his National Guard days, was another story. In that case, the researchers suggest, the conditions for a broad-based scandal - and potent blog buzz - were ripe.

Sonst noch: U.S. Border Security at a Crossroads. Technology Problems Limit Effectiveness of US-VISIT Program to Screen Foreigners, Washington Post.

Schily will mehr Befugnisse für Geheimdienste Mehr zum ominösen Otto-Katalog III aus dem Spiegel. Und von der FDP eine erste ablehnende Reaktion zum geplanten "Gesetz zur Fortentwicklung der Terrorismusbekämpfung"

Netzeitung verlinkt die Blogosphäre. Die Netzeitung wird künftig Weblogs in einer eigenen Rubrik verlinken, natürlich aus der Netzeitung.