KENIX: Blogs contradicted most of the characteristics that define alternative media.

Blogs as Alternative
Dr. Linda Jean Kenix
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14 (2009) 790–822
doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01471.x
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Abstract

It has been argued that blogs, as an extension of 1960s ‘New Journalism,’ have become an important form of alternative media. At their idealized best, blogs can report news without the constraints of censure or the pressures of advertising. This argument suggests that blogs can therefore offer a deeper analysis, based upon a diverse range of sources and contributing citizen commentators, which is not possible through modern corporate, mainstream outlets. 

This exploratory study uses both critical discourse and content analysis to examine 344 posts, 1,712 hyperlinks, and 10,401 comments from 4 political/current events blogs within a 7-day period. This research argues that previous conceptualizations of alternative media, at least in relation to the political/current events blogosphere, might need reconsideration.

Conclusions

Blogs contradicted most of the characteristics that define alternative media. 

The blogs in this sample largely linked with mainstream journalism and other like-minded political blogs rather than independent media outlets or a diverse range of sources. 

There was also a strong reliance on reductive analyses, relying on basic contradictions and frequent use of coded language that only frequent readers would understand. 

There were no meaningful invitations for two-way communication. There was also no evidence of independent information and little instance of unique analysis across the blogs sampled. 

There was widespread redundancy in stories across these blogs, which mirrors mainstream ‘pack’ reporting and a frequent use of caustic commentary. 

There were also very few open invitations to create content and no clear arguments made for democratic participation. While there was frequent reliance on personalized reporting, this alone would not qualify these political blogs as an ‘alternative’ media space when balanced against the weight of these findings.

Discussion

The patterns of hyperlinks found in this study suggest that the political, current events blogs in this sample serve as an insular echo chamber that extend the reach of mainstream news and continue the professionalised norms of mainstream journalism, which dictate a reliance on official sources. 

Hyperlinks ‘‘represent relationships between producers of web materials, and they can be viewed as structuring connections between sites for web users’’ (Foot, Schneider, Dougherty, Xenos, & Larsen, 2003, p. Introduction). If indeed, hyperlinking is a ‘nonrandom’ and purposeful act of building associative socioepistemic networks (Rogers & Marres, 2002), then the preponderance of mainstream news links in this study is meaningful. Similar research examining warblogs (Wall, 2005), found a heavy reliance on mainstream sources. It could be argued that both political blogs and warblogs would lose relevance if they did not draw from ‘‘mainstream agendas of broad social concern’’ (Redden, Caldwell, & Nguyen, 2003, p. 77). 

However, relationships formed through hyperlinks are inherently dialogical, meaning that a form of dialogue occurs between these two texts that provide meaning for communities (Burbules & Callister, 2000; Mitra, 1999). The viewer often infers associations between the producers of information found on these links (Adamic & Adar, 2001). In this sample, the associative meaning can only be one of a strong, albeit critical, relationship with mainstream news. These cognitive, communicative connections extend to online and offline locations (Hine, 2000). If this text linked to more ‘alternative’ sources of news, which provided an independent reporting of events, the remediation of content might have a very different, regenerative and multiplying effect in social communication. Instead, the opposite is actually occurring within this sample of blogs. 

The blogs that were referenced to more, and seen as ‘popular’ relied on mainstream sources more than other, lesser known blogs. The popular blogs actually moved away from the sphere of blogs and into relationships with mainstream news, suggesting a conformist process of homogenisation.

The associative relationships and political alliances (Park, Thelwall, & Kluver, 2005) that exist because of hyperlinking, remain whether one is contradicting or agreeing the news content cited. The mutually dependent relationship solidifies the association. The mainstream news outlet depends upon the blog to increase traffic to its own site, while the blog depends upon the mainstream news outlet to provide content for analysis. Within the interconnected sphere of blogs and mainstream news, the blogs sampled for this study become an extension of corporate news rather than an example of alternative communication. The remediation of mainstream news found in this research may serve to strengthen, rather than weaken or challenge, views found in the elite, mainstream press as these blogs are providing a much wider audience for mainstream views.

The analysis of actual discourse on these sites, suggest that the blogs sampled in this study are not reflective of an alternative media form, at least in the way that as scholars initially envisioned the blogosphere. There appeared to be a strong reliance on reductive analyses, relying on basic contradictions and frequent use of coded language that only regular viewers would understand. This prohibited casual users from engaging with the text and perhaps participating on a larger scale. There were no meaningful invitations for communication and conversation. Rather, these blogs operated as a one-way linear form of communication with a parallel, and sarcastic, sphere of communication occurring within the commentary. This is not necessarily surprising, given other research (i.e. Pedersen & Macafee, 2007), which has found that personal blogs can be used for a whole range of satisfactions, such as representing an outlet for creative work, principally as a leisure activity. Yet, these results suggest a diversion from previously conceptualised notions of the blogosphere as a form of alternative media.

There was also no evidence of independent information and little instance of unique analysis across the blogs sampled. These findings complicate the notion of blogging as an alternative media practice. While there was ample use of personalized reporting, this alone would not qualify these political blogs as an ‘alternative’ media space when balanced against the weight of this research, particularly as the first person accounts were often used to re-mediate mainstream content.

Atkinson (2006) defines alternative media as ‘‘any media that are produced by noncommercial sources and attempt to transform existing social roles and routines by critiquing and challenging power structures’’ (p. 252). By this definition, the political blogs sampled here could not quite meet this definitional hurdle. All four blogs were noncommercial sources, but they all also were arguing for one entrenched power structure over another. In this case, all four blogs readily critiqued mainstream content and argued against the conservative, politically powerful, Republican Party. However, these arguments were drawn heavily from mainstream positions and were on behalf of the liberal, politically powerful, Democrat party. The bloggers’ critiques and their solutions both depended upon the existence of those power structures.
Hamilton (2000) argued that alternative communication constructs different traditions and values. Yet, the structure of these blogs largely followed a oneway communication model grounded in mainstream media practices. There was widespread redundancy in stories across the four blogs sampled, which mirrors mainstream ‘pack’ reporting. There were also very few open invitations to create content. The ‘open thread’ in Crooks and Liars was the lone instance of explicit commentator contribution and there was also very little communication between blogger and commentator. If the goal of alternative media is to subvert the ‘‘hierarchy of access,’’ (Atton, 2002) and ‘‘emphasise first person eyewitness accounts by participants’’ (Atton, 2003, p. 267), then again, the blogs sampled for this study did not qualify as alternative, rather these blogs strongly adhered to the mainstream model of a distanced and knowledgeable content creator and a generalized body of apathetic readers.

It has been suggested that alternative media offer a platform for groups and individuals that have been marginalized by the mainstream media (Atton, 2002). Arguing whether or not the mainstream media has marginalized political bloggers, is somewhat akin to arguing whether or not the mainstream media are liberal or conservative. It depends who is asking. Conservatives argue that the liberal media has shut them off from media access while liberals claim the exact opposite is true. Yet, all blogs undeniably offer people a platform to speak to a wide audience - something that has not been historically possible through mainstream outlets. But, while these bloggers write from outside the walls of mainstream institutions and from a personalized perspective, which is also outside of mainstream journalistic practices, the text of these blogs still derived from within the institutional framework of mainstream society that the bloggers purportedly critiqued. There was no evidence in this sample of bloggers establishing a new way of organizing media or sharing meaningful self-disclosure that reported on personal experiences or struggles; no resistance narratives outside of established political norms and practices; no facilitation of democratic participation and cultural disruption.

Downing (2001) has argued convincingly of the complete mainstream blockage of public expression and the necessity for alternative media to fill the cultural and social gap. There is little evidence here that political blogs are fulfilling this idea. Rather, these blogs exist as somewhat of an overlapping sphere between mainstream and alternative media, extending and drawing upon mainstream practices just without corporate sponsorship, and at times, with a personal voice. Many of the values these blogs appear to critique are the same values they have subsumed from mainstream journalism. What emerged from this study, wasasampleofblogs that actedas contract ombudsmen for the mainstream press. The principal difference was that they were not on the mainstream payroll - a welcome relief for newspapers facing continual budget cuts–and, rather than ‘answering’ to public concerns about content, these blogs were driven by individual interests created within the culture of mainstream media.

This study agrees with the recent trend in scholarship about alternative media, which has found that alternative media simply can’t be explained or understood without placing it in relation to mainstream media (Harcup, 2005). There was very little in this research that supported an ‘alternative’ blogosphere as has been defined by other scholars (i.e. binary analysis, dependent reporting with mainstream sources, story redundancy between blogs resembling mainstream pack journalism, one-way communication with readers, caustic commentary, coded language and little encouragement of online participation). Yet, the personalization of blogs in this sample draws directly from alternative media practices and is rarely found in mainstream content. Downing (2001) has argued that scholars should reject ‘‘binarism’’ (p. ix) between mainstream and alternative media given that alternative media practices draw heavily from, and then subvert, mainstream skills and techniques (Atton, 2002, p. 151) and those in the mainstream often draw from their counterparts in alternative media (Harcup, 2005). However, this research argues that these political blogs, which have been conceptualised within academia as an alternative to mainstream media, actually draw very little from what has been defined as alternative media. 

Further, these blogs appear firmly grounded within the ideological mainstream and make no attempt to create alternative identities outside of entrenched, elite systems of power. The ability for citizens to speak with a broader reach was one of the few ‘alternative’ qualities found here. But, ironically, this ability may have actually served to strengthen mainstream media given that bloggers simply re-mediated mainstream content and therefore gave these perspectives much more consideration and voice than they had prior.

More research examining the distinctions between different ‘‘types’’ of media are vitally important as technologies continue to create new communicative spheres. As this research shows, there is extensive overlap between what was once considered ‘alternative’ and ‘mainstream.’ The blogs in this sample critiqued mainstream content with mainstream ideology and practices through a far-reaching, once ‘new’ and ‘alternative’ medium. Indeed, it was likely the medium itself that first garnered the ‘alternative’ moniker and not the content. If one does examine the content, it becomes apparent that there is far more overlap between the blogs in this sample and modern political talk radio, rather than alternative media. This illustrates that it is not enough to label what was once alternative media, something like ‘citizen media’ without careful consideration of what separates the two. Simply because content is produced by an individual citizen, does not mean it does not rely upon corporate models of communication, mainstream ideologies and corporate content. There is important work in the area of citizen media (Schaffer, 2007; Wilkins, 2000), but more effort into the distinctions between citizen and alternative media are needed.

Obviously, these findings can only be applied to the blogs sampled in this study. This research was based on a small sample and any conclusions should be applied only to the blogs included in this study. This research should serve to continue the trajectory of study into the blogosphere. 

All blogs are not made equal. There are blogs dedicated only to primary journalistic reporting that might be placed differently within the mainstream/alternative media spectrum. Each type and category of blog needs to be examined individually to have a better understanding of the blogosphere as a whole. Given the presently personalized nature of blogs, it may seem as if there are almost as many variants of blogs as there are people on the planet. However, blogs tend to aggregate within categories. Technorati, which as of June 2008 indexed 112.8 million blogs (2008), suggested the following: entertainment, business, lifestyle, politics, sports, and technology. Obviously, this study only addressed one of these categories. Entertainment blogs, for example, may draw much more extensively from alternative media practices than business, which might rely more on corporate modes of communication.

Personal interviews with the bloggers themselves would also be extremely useful in building a better understanding of blogger motivations as well as exploring their own conceptualisations of blogging as a mainstream or alternative media practice. Previous research has examining the uses and gratifications of blogging has revealed that many bloggers create content as a creative hobby (Pedersen & Macafee, 2007), self-documentation and improving writing skills (Li, 2007), as well as for personal expression and self disclosure (Papacharissi, 2004). Thus far, there has not been extensive research examining bloggers who create content with the goal of filling informational gaps left behind by mainstream media. Further research in this area would be instrumental in developing the field of study surrounding blogs and alternative media.