The use of blogs as social media tools of political communication: citizen journalism and public opinion 2.0

Abstract

In recent years, the political arena has been transformed into a space of public debate, a phenomenon which is both evident, yet hitherto unparalleled. A new range of digital social communication tools framed within the Web 2.0 era, with the blog often proving the tool of choice, has displaced the traditional dominance of the communication scenario previously enjoyed by the mass media, thanks to a series of more interactive, diverse and credible dynamics which place the user at the very heart of the political discussion process and facilitates processes of social mobilization and collective civic action. This study takes the above situation as its point of departure and guiding principle to propose and define political blogs as a new means of creating information and opinion, and communicating and occasioning effective influence in public agenda-setting. This theoretical work undertakes a detailed critical analysis of the potential of these tools and explains the extent to which they should be considered appropriate platforms for the communication and discussion of public issues. Moreover, it will also consider their engagement in a new, more open form of citizen journalism, free of the bias and pressures exerted by large media corporations, thus creating a digital public sphere with far greater capacity and agency for change.

Meat Reduction Practices in the Context of a Social Media Grassroots Experiment Campaign

“…Overall, there are some pitfalls in how social media is able to create political participation and interaction, such as through "slactivism," where sharing, liking and other social media action can have only vague connections to real-life situations [71]. Blogs can be seen as a somewhat different platform in this context, enabling more in-depth and systematic presentation of issues [72].…”

Social Media, the Public Sphere, and Public Space in Authoritarian Settings: A Case Study of Egypt’s Tahrir Square and 18 Years of User Generated Content

“…Indeed, a 2008 government report warned against blogs for being outside the realm of censorship, which "provokes certain political and ethical reservations" (IDSC, 2008, cited in Abdulla, 2013. Sánchez-Villar (2019) noted that as the differences between traditional and citizen journalists have become blurred, social media, and blogs in particular, have the opportunity to promote issues outside the agenda set by major media corporations, thus expanding the margins of expression to more diverse publics, and gaining more credibility. This influence of blogs and social media is what Russell (2016) credits as the main reason behind a paradigm shift in the power dynamics of traditional journalism.…”

Dialogicity in Individual and Institutional Scientific Blogs

“…Institutional discourse, on the other hand, prefers more neutral representations of verbal processes, mostly characterized by verbs of locution such as "say" and "note" (20), or references to topic-setting illocutionary functions such as 'explaining' and 'studying'. These references to verbal processes often make up long chains of representations (21) where the actual reporting is mostly realized in non-interpretative terms:…”

“…There has also been intense debate on the diminished status of blogs in many fields, especially in online debates [18,19], pointing at the need for blogs to reposition themselves in the context of a wide range of platforms. In political communication, for example, politicians have shown a clear preference for keeping in touch with the wider public through other social media (e.g., Twitter), but blogging remains a key tool of "citizen journalism" [20]. In the world of research and academia, blogs continue to be popular, even if often ephemerally so.…”