“Beats me. It’s yesterday’s news, it’s hard copy, and you have to pay for it.”

 

 

 

 

Are Blogs the New Newspapers?

 

 

A Comparison of Blogs and Newspapers

 

 

 

The soaring popularity blogs enjoy as an alternative information source to traditional media raises the question if blogs are to be considered the new newspapers. In our analysis we found out that both media share a lot of similarities. However, the many differences cannot be ignored. In the end, blogs might serve as an individual (online) newspaper.

 

 

In this paper, we elaborate the similarities and differences that characterize blogs and (reputable) newspapers in terms of (online) text and (online) journalism. We also dare a forecast of how the relationship between blogs and newspapers might develop in the future. As statements about blogs cannot be generalized due to a great variety of blogs, we focus on political blogs. For this purpose, we chose the blog Talking Points Memo (TPM) Election Central.

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

 

What is a blog?

 

Before we start our analysis, a definition of the term “blog” is required. According to Wikipedia “a blog is a website where entries are displayed in reverse chronological order.”

 

 

TPM Election Central

 

The blog we will be focusing on in our analysis is a liberal political blog, run by Josh Marshall, a graduate from Princeton and doctorate from Brown University. He founded TPM Media LLC and began publishing Talking Points Memo in 2000. In 2006, TPM Election Central, whose principal editors are Erik Kleefeld and Greg Sargent, was founded. TPM is an active and respondent blog that ranks among the top six political blogs in the United States.

 

 

 

 

Analysis

 

 .

 

a) Online Text

 

According to Jenny Sundén texts are produced through (the process of) writing (Sundén 17).

Online text can be described as a text available in electronic format on the Internet. As components of online text we discuss four aspects:

 

    1. Layout

 

    2. Language  

 

    3.Connection to other media

 

    4. Interactivity

 

 

 

1. Layout 

 

The Layout of the TPM blog resembles the layout of a newspaper. Nevertheless, blogs offer features newspapers do not.

 

The TPM blog has a clear layout with columns. The primary medium is text. Graphs and pictures visualize the content of the article. Up to this point, the layout of the blog is not different from the one of a newspaper.

 

However, TPM offers more than the layout components of a newspaper. Due to digitality blogs can combine different communication elements beside text. Videos, (constantly updated) polls, hypertext and a blogroll for instance are also constituents of blogs. Newspapers can hardly keep up with these features. Some of their pictures are not even colored, and they are always static. This is a consequence of the analogue technique of newspapers. In contrast, blogs are dynamic.

 

 

 

2. Language

 

Newspapers as well as blogs like TPM are characterized by a journalistic style. However, TPM´s journalistic style differs from that of a newspaper.

 

TPM directly addresses the reader with imperatives, such as “check this out”. There is a personal note in the language style. Furthermore, the language is less sophisticated, containing less technical terms. The bloggers use more short sentences.

 

The writing style of most newspapers tends to sound intellectual and formal. Long sentences prove a high standard of knowledge and professional skill which in turn raise the reputation of newspapers. The reader is usually not directly addressed in articles. Articles report on events rather unemotionally.

 

 

 

3. Connection to other media

 

Newspapers as well as blogs cite other media. Though, blogs have diverse technical possibilities to do so.

 

Blogs make a lot of use of hypertext. Hypertext links the blog to internal posts or to external websites or other blogs. Instead of writing the whole article by themselves, bloggers often sum up the most important statements and provide a link to the original source for detail information. That way information overload can be avoided. The following figure visualizes the connection structure of TPM Election Central to other media:

 

 

TPM Election Central, which along with TPM, TPM Café, TPM Muckraker and TPM Horse’s Mouth belongs to TPM Media LLC, is connected to TPM. TPM is further connected to other blogs through the blogroll. If these blogs have TPM in their blogroll, they can visit TPM Election Central via TPM. TPM Election Central is linked to other media sites, candidate’s sites and other blogs by hypertext.

 

If newspapers cite other sources, they cannot provide a direct access to them. They are forced to repeat what these sources reported on.

 

 

 

4. Interactivity

 

Both media, blogs and newspapers, offer their readers possibilities to become active on their own. The significant difference is the degree of interactivity.

 

The interactivity of the TPM blog  is described best as moderated interactivity. Users are enabled to post comments on every published article. These posts can be regarded as a progressive form of letters to the editor.

But the interactivity is restricted qualitatively. By choosing the topics of the articles the blogger moderates: On TPM Election Central users cannot open a discussion on subjects that are not mentioned in an article. Content and language of comments are also checked and rejected if deemed obviously inappropriate.

With respect to quantity there are no restrictions thanks to digitality. Thus, users extensively make use of their opportunities and usually post more than one comment per article. For instance, the user john mccutchen posted seven comments on an article about Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Users can even insert hyperlinks into their comments, which link to their own homepage or to another website (e.g. john mccutchen's link to politico.com). These actions and reactions gradually develop into a discussion and create a form of public sphere. The following figure illustrates this process.

 

 

Moreover, there are no boundaries for users to pass to become active. They do not have to create an account and sign in to post comments. Consequently, everybody is allowed to participate, which further enhances the idea of a public sphere. 

 

Apart from that, TPM invites its users to create their own blog on TPMCafé. This feature requires an account.

TPM’s founder Josh Marshall adds that the readers’ intervention has had great influence on the blog’s creation and character. Therefore, the users’ activity has contributed significantly to the blog’s organic growth.

 

Due to limited space and technical restrictions newspapers publish only a tiny fraction of all letters to the editor they receive. For the same reason a reader cannot expect his second letter to appear in the next edition after he was successful the first time. Since the newspaper staff chooses the letters, we cannot speak of moderated interactivity. In this case, the term selected interactivity is more appropriate. Hence, the degree of interactivity of a newspaper is much lower than that of a blog.

 

 

 

 

b) Online Journalism

 

Online journalism comprises the entire process of producing and presenting any kind of content on the internet. The result of this process is online text. According to James Curran those “new ways of doing journalism” could have been primarily made possible through Internet technology (Curran 228). Since blogs constitute an important part of online journalism, we want to discuss this phenomenon by taking a closer look at six aspects:

 

    1. Actuality vs. Accuracy

 

    2. Topics

 

    3. Objectivity

 

    4. Readership

 

    5. Context & Background

 

    6. Embodiment, Identity & Community.

 

 

 

1. Actuality vs. Accuracy

 

Readers/Users expect accurate up-to-date news from both media. However, the grade of accuracy and actuality demanded by  the readership differs.

 

As changes are constantly possible thanks to digitality, users expect up-to-date news from blogs. Accuracy is neglected. To illustrate this thesis, we will take a look at the following example: During the Iowa Caucus on January 3, 2008, the TPM bloggers first reported Thompson was quitting the race, whereupon they corrected this statement a few minutes later. For the sake of actuality, blog users set accuracy aside. Actuality can be regarded as a typical characteristic of blogs and bloggers act accordingly to satisfy the users' demands.

 

By contrast, readers of newspapers expect well-researched, true and accurate news. In fact, accuracy even counts as an indicator for a good reputation of newspapers. The demand of actuality cannot always be met, as profound research takes its time. Therefore, most newspapers are “only” published every day or once a week. They are less actual but more accurate than blogs. For a demonstrative example we can refer to election results. Whereas blogs constantly update election results throughout the night of the Election Day, newspapers announce the definite results in their morning edition.

 

 

 

2. Topics

 

There is an intersection of the topics blogs and newspapers report on. Still, this intersection is small.

 

Posts on blogs usually deal with one specific topic. Moreover, blogs often discuss topics that are not represented in the mainstream media. At least, they go more into detail in their reporting. This results from the fact that many blogs are subject-focused and active blogs that put a lot of effort in the research of issues related to “their” subject. A frequent reason for former journalists to create a blog is to get around the rather narrow filter of the mainstream media and use blogs for news dissemination. With their own blog journalists themselves have the power to decide on the topics to be brought to public light.

 

A prominent example is the Lott-Thurmond controversy: At a party honoring Senator Strom Thurmond in 2002, U.S. Senator Trend Lott praised Thurmond by proclaiming that he would have been the better president back in 1948. This was a delicate statement, given that Thurmond approved racial segregation. Several blogs, among them TPM, revealed this controversy, while mainstream media did not pay any attention to it – until after blogs came up with it. Ultimately, blogging exerted such influence and pressure that Lott resigned.

Another example is the U.S. Attorney Purge in 2006. Blogs, also TPM, proved to be a better source of information for this issue than newspapers that had not managed to catch up on it. This shows that the influence of blogs “extends beyond their readership through their interaction with national mainstream media” (Adamic, Glance 2).

 

 

Newspapers cover more general and less specific news. There are certain news they just “have to” cover. The New York Times for instance would have to report on a Tsunami in Asia, whereas TPM as a liberal political blog would not - unless the Tsunami had any impacts on U.S. liberal political affairs. Newspapers want to take no risks. News that the mass readership might not be interested in are immediately filtered out.

 

 

3. Objectivity

 

No medium can claim to be fully objective (although many do). But there are differences in the degree of claimed (and expected) objectivity of blogs and newspapers.

 

Blogs openly display their political orientation. If not stated explicitly, their political attitude is revealed by the choice of topics. TPM predominantly covers topics dealing with the Democratic Party and in the presidential campaign with the Democratic candidates Clinton and Obama, of course. Posts about Republicans – especially positive posts – are rare. This behavior corresponds to the pattern of a liberal political (subject-focused) blog. Links stay within the liberal community (c.p. Adamic, Glance).

 

 

This figure shows the number of links within the liberal (blue) and the conservative (red) community as well as between the two communities. Obviously, there are only few links between the two political camps. Links within the own community, on the other hand, are numerous. This linking behavior aims for opinion reassurement and opinion reinforcement. Davis confirms this behavioral pattern by regarding it as: “a means for reinforcing preexisting views rather than a virtual community […]" (Davis 162). Although opinion reinforcement ranks above objectivity, users do not mind but expect and sympathize with it.

 

Most newspapers claim objectivity in their reporting. They usually do not explicitly belong to one political camp, but they prefer a certain political orientation. Thus, they are “only” covertly biased. Still, they try to report equally on all political camps and candidates. Readers expect a just reporting, as they are not looking for opinion reassurement/ reinforcement but rather for information.

 

 

 

4. Readership

 

Newspaper readers as well as blog users choose their type of newspaper/blog according to their education, preferences and political attitude. However, the readership of a blog is usually far more homogenous than the one of a newspaper.  

 

An analysis of TPM’s readership reveals three important characteristics: Users are predominantly male, educated and wealthy while every age is almost equally represented.

 

 

The homogeneity of blog users stands out even more when we compare their political attitudes and views. Since there is a vast variety of political blogs in all shades, every user can find a blog that represents his opinion. So, “the audience itself becomes more selective"  (Lister 30).

 

The number of newspapers is much smaller than the one of (political) blogs. As discussed above, newspapers want to and have to reach a big clientele to survive. As a consequence, their readership is very heterogeneous. It can belong to the political left or right. But within these camps every shade from one extreme to another might be represented.

 

 

 

5. Context and Background

 

In most cases, the context blogs are settled in clearly differs from the background of newspapers.

 

Theoretically, blogs can be run by everyone: individuals (private citizens, politicians or stars), companies, institutions, political parties or NGOs and even mainstream media like TV channels or newspapers.

In practice, blogs are predominantly written by individuals, notably the most famous ones, for instance TPM whose author is Josh Marshall. These individuals operate on eye level with the “big players”. For two main reasons chances in the blog world are equal:

1. Creation and maintenance of blogs require no or only a low financial budget.

2. Creation and maintenance became easier with the emergence of blog software which can often be purchased for free on the internet.

Individuals might even have an advantage: Since the responsibility for a blog lies in the hands of only one or a few persons, decisions are made very quickly which contributes to a blog`s actuality. Yet, they usually do not have as many resources as newspapers do.  

 

In contrast, all important, famous and popular newspapers are published by big media companies, which often consist of many other branches apart from the newspapers’ sections. Since producing, publishing and marketing a newspaper require a huge financial and personal budget, those “big players” dominate the market.

 

 

 

6. Identity and Community

 

There is some common ground between blogs and newspapers in terms of identity. However, as a consequence of profound differences in readership and context the embodiment of bloggers clearly differs from that of journalists. The same applies for the communities of blog users and newspaper readers.

 

Just like most newspaper journalists TPM Election Central’s bloggers Erik Kleefeld and Greg Sargent use their real name, which implies seriousness and trustworthiness. But the bloggers go even further:  Firstly, they provide a personal profile with detailed information and a picture. This indicates that they identify with “their” blog to a high degree like most other individual bloggers seem to do as well. Therefore, their personal opinion has a strong influence and is often evident to their readers.

Secondly, individual bloggers have a lot of power by choosing their topics. They set the agenda independently from any employer. Hence, bloggers also identify totally with “their” topics. This generates an atmosphere of familiarity and intimacy. Just like the bloggers the users identify with their favorite blog: A (online) community is created. The following figure illustrates this community model:

 

 

In contrast to individual bloggers, newspaper journalists cannot set the agenda on their own. Since newspapers “have” to cover the day’s topics to meet their readers’ expectations, journalists must follow those requirements. Although many journalists might regard writing not only as their job, but also as their vocation, they still identify with their newspaper to a far lower degree than bloggers do with their blog. In addition to that, their opinion to certain topics is often not of any interest. Since a newspaper’s readership is very heterogeneous, newspaper readers do not create their own community.  

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

 

Similarities

 

As we have seen newspapers and blogs exhibit some similarities, especially with respect to text: The layouts resemble each other and both mediums employ journalistic style.

 

 

Differences

 

However, the differences clearly outweigh the similarities. Since blogs are written in online text, they particularly differ from newspapers in the usage of hypertext and a much higher degree of interactivity. With regard to (online) journalism the most important differences consist in the selection of topics, the readership, the context of the medium and the characteristics of identity and community.

 

 

 

In conclusion, it turns out that blogs are not equivalent to newspapers, but can be regarded as individual, custom-made online newspapers that report on the kind of news the individual likes to read about. They may be used exclusively or additionally to newspapers that cover general news.

 

The question whether blogs are a serious threat to newspapers will ultimately be answered in the future. Right now, figures speak in favor of blogs. In a world in which the individual comes to the fore, blogs as individual, custom-made newspapers might correspond to this mentality. We cannot yet speak of a replacement of traditional newspapers by blogs; newspapers have rather got challenging competition. And the reader can certainly profit from it.

 

 

 

 

Excursus/ Forecast

 

It remains an open question whether blogs consider themselves as (a special kind of) newspaper.

The relationship between blogs and newspapers/ mass media is a difficult one and characterized by contradictions:

 

 

Bloggers

 

On the one hand, bloggers often create blogs to distinguish themselves from mass media. They attach great importance to being reckoned as exclusive. On the other hand, bloggers struggle hard to become famous and to be reconsidered in the mass media.

 

 

Mass Media

 

Mass media on their part tend to display blogs as gossiping. However, they often cite them and rely on them as an alternative information source. “Because of bloggers’ ability to identify and frame breaking news, many mainstream media sources keep a close key on the best known political blogs" (Adamic, Glance 2).

 

 

Thus, we can speak of a love-hate relationship between blogs and newspapers. It is characterized by stereotypes and envy, but at the same time by mutual influence and cooperation. Will the relationship develop into a love attachment? Or will hate prevail? We will see. At least it seems evident that any changes in this relationship will more likely be caused by newspapers than by blogs. The reason lies in the limited number of important newspapers that possess enough resources which are necessary to induce changes.

 

 

 

Are blogs the new newspapers? Or are newspapers tomorrow`s blogs?

 

A possible answer by Richard Davis

 

 

The relationship between blogs and newspapers as a representative of mass media might change and determine the future of these media. Recognizing the popularity blogs gain, big newspapers are (already) reacting to this fashion and increasingly creating blogs. They have enough marketing opportunities to attract many users and they possess the required financial budget to establish professional blogs (and to hire talented and experienced bloggers) that satisfy the users` various demands and attitudes as another branch of their empire.

 

All the grassroot bloggers (or at least the important and well-known ones) that blossom in the young days of blogs right now might be overtaken by or (forced to) work for the “big global players”, namely the big companies that publish the most successful and most famous newspapers and that have already conquered other branches. Richard Davis, a professor for Political Science at Birgham Young University, predicts the same future for the Internet as for previous media. In his book “The Web of Politics”, he says that the Internet “will be treated like other new technologies, that is, as a means for existing players to continue their roles” (Davis 37).

 

 

 

 

                                                                                    

 

• Lister, Martin et al. New Media: A critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2003

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