Political blogs rely on mainstream media, not sources, for information

Since political blogs burst into prominence in the 2004 presidential election, many have argued that these blogs are a new and important form of political journalism that is increasingly supplanting mainstream media.

But a new study by an Emerson College researcher, published in the current (Autumn 2009) issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, shows that bloggers do little original reporting and that political blogs rely heavily on the mainstream media for their information.

“Nearly half of the hypertext links – which serve the roughly the same purpose as attribution in a newspaper story – in political blogs direct the reader to mainstream media stories. Only 15 percent take readers to ‘primary source’ material such as government documents or candidates’ public statements,” said Mark Leccese, the author of the study and assistant professor in the Journalism Department of Emerson College in Boston.

The study examined more than 2,000 hypertext links in six top independent political blogs – three liberal and three conservative – over seven consecutive days in January 2008 and placed each link into one of four categories: links to mainstream media, links to other blogs, links to other pages on the same Web site, and links to primary source material.

“I worked as a political reporter for newspapers for more than 20 years, so when political blogs became a phenomenon, I wanted to try to understand the similarities and differences in how bloggers and mainstream media reporters go about their work,” Leccese said. “Reporters build their stories from primary source material, so I designed a study to determine whether political bloggers do the same. They don’t.”

Readership of blogs has exploded in less than a decade. A Pew Internet & American Life survey in 2008 found that a quarter of American adults read blogs and that the second most popular topic for blogs – after “personal” – is politics. In a 2007 poll, 55 percent of Americans agreed blogs are “important to the future of American journalism.”

Almost half of the hypertext links in the six blogs studied – Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars, Talking Points Memo, Michelle Malkin, InstaPundit and Power Line – took readers to Web sites run by media organizations that employ salaried staff reporters.

“The standard format of a blog post is a link to a mainstream media story with comment and opinion added by the blogger,” Leccese said. “In that way, political blogs are like a newspaper comprised of only op-ed pages featuring opinion columnists who gather most of their information from secondary sources.”

About a quarter of the hypertext links took readers to other blogs. “This is the famous and now well-documented ‘echo chamber’ effect,” Leccese said. “This suggests that for political bloggers, opinion reinforcement is more important than gathering and disseminating information.”

One survey found that a third of bloggers consider themselves journalists. But this study argues that while bloggers may be considered journalists in the narrowest definition of the word—those who keep a journal or whose writing is featured regularly in a mass medium—they do not fit more common and widely accepted definition of journalists: workers in the mass media who seek out facts largely from primary sources and present those facts to media consumers.

CONTACT: Mark Leccese, assistant professor, Journalism Department, Emerson College, 617-824-3857, Mark_Leccese@emerson.edu.

• Download Online Information Sources of Political Blogs by Mark Leccese, Emerson College.
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Research You Can Use is produced by a volunteer group of faculty and staff within the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The group selects new research from AEJMC refereed journals that may interest journalists. Journalists may use the releases for stories or for continuing education.

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Online news is an inferior good among users, research shows

Rising income predicts a decline in online news use so well that it may exemplify what economists call ‘inferior goods,’ reports a study recently published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.

Overall, the study suggests online news is perceived as ‘inferior goods’ because online news use decreases as income increases, explains Hsiang Iris Chyi, Assistant Professor, U. of Texas-Austin.

The study finds increased income predicts decreased online news use even after researchers control for: gender, age, educational levels, overall news interest, and use of newspapers, television news, and radio news. In other words, Chyi and Mengchieh Jacie Yang, U. of Texas-Austin, find higher income predicts decreased online news consumption regardless of otherwise relevant demographics and media habits.

In an interview, Chyi says the study also raises the question if consumers perceive other media, such as Internet video, MP3 players, and cameras on cell phones, as ‘inferior goods?’

In the article, Chyi and Yang explain the association between increased income and decreased on line news use fits a microeconomics theory known as ‘inferior goods.’

The authors explain consumers distinguish between perceived ‘normal’ and ‘inferior goods’ when they make routine purchasing decisions.

The authors add ‘normal goods’ are characterized by a positive relationship between higher income and increased demand. When income rises, however, the demand for ‘inferior goods’ is identified by a de facto decline in consumer demand.

The authors note the classification of ‘inferior goods’ is not necessarily linked to a product or service’s intrinsic quality. For example, Chyi and Yang explain consumers tend to buy more macaroni and cheese, Ramen noodles, potatoes, rice, and bus travel when income declines. However, these transform into ‘inferior goods’ because consumers buy less of each after incomes increase – even though the product is the same.

“Inferior goods can be useful, convenient, and profitable,’ Chyi says. Chyi adds it insightful to understand the term ‘inferior goods’ in terms of marketing decisions instead of quality. “Ramen noodles should not be marketed as steak,” Chyi says.

The authors note no previous study in mass communication or journalism has assessed the relationship between news consumption and income with the intent to distinguish between ‘normal’ and ‘inferior goods.’

The study’s findings are based on the 2004 biennial survey of media consumption by the Pew Research Center. The Pew national random sample surveyed about 3000 adults — of which about 24 percent had gone online to obtain news within the previous day. Among these persons, about half, or 616 respondents, reported the length of time they spent looking at online news the previous 24 hours (from less than five minutes to one hour or more).

So, online news use is a measure of actual news consumption.

The study provides additional information about what predicts online news use. For example, the study finds increased radio news use, news interest, and higher education levels predict increased online news consumption. Conversely, age, gender, newspaper use, television news use fail to predict online news consumption.

The authors note the findings have implications for online publishers who are considering whether to charge readers for services. The authors imply the findings suggest additional charges may not be well-received by consumers.

The authors conclude the findings additionally reveal the need to better understanding the value readers, listeners, and viewers derive from news as well as detail why some consumers perceive online news as ‘inferior goods.’ Chyi adds little is known about how young adults distinguish a high from a low quality online news provider as well as how persons under 30 make similar decisions about newspapers, magazines, radio and television news.

Chyi says the Media Economics Research Group at the U. of Texas-Austin plans future work in these areas.

CONTACT: Iris Chyi, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin, chyi@mail.utexas.edu, http://newmediaresearch.org; or Jacie Yang, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Journalism, University of Texas at Austin, jacieyang@gmail.com

• Download Is Online News an Inferior Good: Examining the Economic Nature of Online News among Users by Hsiang Iris Chyi and Mengchiegh Jacie Yang
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Research You Can Use is produced by a volunteer group of faculty and staff within the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The group selects new research from AEJMC refereed journals that may interest journalists. Journalists may use the releases for stories or for continuing education.

A PDF version of all participating articles are available for download. For a reprint, contact the person cited or Jennifer McGill, Executive Director, AEJMC, 234 Outlet Pointe Blvd., Ste. A, Columbia, SC 29210-5667, e-mail: AEJMCHQ@aol.com, telephone: (803) 798-0271. For more information about the Research You Can Use project, please contact Mich Sineath, e-mail: AEJMCpr@aol.com.