Election-Year Blogging Examined

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Blogs have become a key part of presidential campaign strategy. An analysis of political blogs leading up to the 2008 presidential election finds differences in the use of blogs by Democrats and Republicans.

Robert H. Wicks, communication professor at the University of Arkansas, worked with a team of graduate students to analyze the content of four politically aligned blogs and six nonaligned blogs. They looked at blog posts from the time between Aug. 23, 2008, the day that Joe Biden was announced as the first vice presidential candidate, and Election Day, November 4.

The results of their research, “Tracking the Blogs: An Evaluation of Attacks, Acclaims, and Rebuttals Presented on Political Blogs During the 2008 Presidential Election,” was published in June by the journal American Behavioral Scientist. The researchers examined frequency of blogging and content of the blogs and raised concerns about the use of blogs as a news source.

The two parties differed in the frequency of blogging on candidate and party websites. In the 2008 election, the researchers found, the Democratic Party deployed blogs on its candidate and party websites 11.6 times as often as the Republican Party. My.BarackObama.com issued 1,400 blog postings with an additional 303 postings on Democrats.org for a total of 1,703 entries affiliated with the Democratic Party. The Republican Party released 147 postings, 92 on JohnMcCain.com and 55 on GOP.com.

By and large, the GOP blogs used text with some video, while the majority of the Democratic blogs offered images, video or slideshows along with text. Unlike the Republicans, more than half of the Democratic blog postings included open threads, that is, postings left open for reader comment and discussion. Of these, five came from My.BarackObama.com and 104 came from Democrats.org for a total of 109 of the blogs politically aligned with the Democrats.

“No open threads were coded for the blogs politically aligned with the Republicans, suggesting that the Democrats encouraged more discussion and interactivity on their blogs than did the Republicans,” the researchers wrote.

In addition to examining the four blogs aligned with candidates John McCain and Barack Obama and their party websites, the researchers analyzed the content of six politically nonaligned blogs, selected to provide a mix of prominent conservative and liberal blogs as well as blogs directed toward African Americans, women and Christians.

Researchers used well-established theoretical criteria to analyze the incidence of attacks, acclaims and rebuttals in blog postings. That is, they considered whether each message was attacking or criticizing a candidate, praising a candidate or presenting him in a positive light, or offering a defense or rebuttal to an attack. The candidates’ blogs tended toward the positive.

“Barack Obama and John McCain could take the high road, but the mud was being flung on the party websites,” Wicks said.

For both McCain and Obama, 45 percent of the postings on their campaign blogs were acclaims, about three times the percentage of acclaims in their respective party blogs. Party blogs deployed the attacks, with 60 percent of the Republican Party blogs and 34 percent of the Democratic Party blogs attacking the opposing candidate.

Nonaligned blogs attacked more often than they praised. Five of the six nonaligned blogs posted attacks in 30 percent to 50 percent of their entries, while they posted acclaims from eight percent to 26 percent of the time. Rebuttals were few from any source, making up only 4.4 percent of the total.

The researchers point out that, with the strong opinions expressed in their attacks and acclaims, blogs tend to present a black-and-white world. They both “expand the opportunities for healthy debate in a free society” and “enable people to avoid information that may be unpleasant or unwelcome.”

While the evolution of the media allows people to select a comfortable source of information, Wicks suggests, “People should be aware that they might find a certain blog homey but might want to visit other homes from time to time.”

Wicks is a professor of communication, adjunct professor of political science and director of the Center for Communication and Media Research in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. The University of Arkansas graduate students involved in the research are Amy Bradley, now with Louisiana State University; Gregory Blackburn and Tiffany Fields.

The journal article is available at the website of American Behavioral Scientist.