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This empirical study addresses dynamics of viral information in the blogosphere, presenting a new methodology which enables the capture of dynamism and the time-factor of information diffusion in networks. Data was gathered on nearly 10,000 blogs and 13,000 blog posts, linking to 65 of the top U.S. presidential election videos that became viral on the Internet between March 2007 and June 2009. The article argues that the blogosphere is not monolithic and illuminates the role of four important blog types: elite, top-political, top-general and tail blogs. It creates a map of the 'life cycle' of blogs posting links to viral information. It shows that elite and top-general blogs ignite the virality process, which means that they get the chance to frame messages and influence agenda setting while top-political and tail blogs act as followers in the process.

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This paper develops and tests a theoretical model, which proposes to examine cities’ commitment to the concept of open government data (OGD) according to three typical levels. Level 1, Way of Life, indicates high commitment to OGD; Level 2, On the Fence, represents either a low or erratic commitment; Level 3, Lip Service, refers to either scarce or no commitment. This study shows that these types exhibit distinct behavior in four key indicators: (1) Rhythm, (2) Coverage, (3) Categorization, and (4) Feedback. This theoretical framework is examined using longitudinal mixed-method analysis of the OGD behavior of 16 US cities over a period of four years, using a corpus of municipal quantitative metadata and primary qualitative data. This methodology allows us to represent, for the first time, cities’ evolving OGD commitment, or “OGD heartbeat”.

This study examines the behavior of influential political blogs (conservative and liberal) in reference to external viral content during March 2007 and June 2009. We analyze homophily and cross-ideological (heterophily) practices. We propose a multidimensional model that employs both qualitative and quantitative methods for examining homophily behaviors by looking at three dimensions: blog-to-blog, blog-to-video, blog post-to-video. Findings show that while homophily patterns prevail, some limited occurrences of cross-ideological practices exist. The cross-linking practices may include deliberative motives, but in essence they are not created for the purposes of discourse. Instead, these cross-linking practices strengthen previously held political stances of the users who create them and negatively portray and reframe content of alternative views. This represents homophily in the guise of cross-linking.