In Search of Australian Blogs: Determining the Extent of the Contemporary Australian Blogosphere

In Search of Australian Blogs: Determining the Extent of the Contemporary Australian Blogosphere
Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Brisbane, Australia
Image by campoalto

Understanding Blogs
Blog research to date:
qualitative studies of blogging genres, communities, and practices (e.g. Uses of Blogs , 2006, eds. Bruns & Jacobs)
quantitative studies of blog networks (e.g. issue-based or national)
Standard methodology:
find relevant blogs (search, Technorati, specific blog platform, etc.)
identify links (on current page)  crawl to linked pages  repeat
capture (scrape) text and other details (not always included)
plot link network structure, correlate with blog content patterns
Big questions:
structure of online publics – topical and other networks in the blogosphere
growth, decline, or stable equilibrium in the population of bloggers?
patterns of flow and dissemination of information

Key Problems
Technology limitations:
crawlers and scrapers often lack sophistication
need to distinguish:
posts – comments – ancillary / functional texts
discursive links – blogroll links – functional links
want to slice data in different ways:
select blog activity for specific days, weeks, months
select blog content and links for specific blogs or blog clusters
Analytical limitations:
patterns of interlinkage tell only part of the story
maps provide only a temporary snapshot
want to understand:
what clusters have in common
and how they change over time
later: crossover to Twitter , Flickr , YouTube , etc.

Our Approach
Process stages:
data gathering and processing
track large number of (broadly) political Australian blogs through RSS feeds
scrape blog content for newly posted entries
separate blog post content from ancillary materials / separate discursive links from other link types
(grow master list of blogs as required)
content analysis
combine extracted blog post content (per blog, per cluster, per timeframe, …)
automated analysis to identify key themes and keywords
currently using Leximancer
network analysis
combine extracted link information (overall, per timeframe, per cluster, …)
automated network mapping to identify lead blogs and clusters
currently using Gephi
combined analysis
e.g. comparative content analysis for lead blogs and clusters in the link network
e.g. correlation of blogosphere patterns with external factors (parallel themes in mainstream media, etc.)
2009: Australian political blogs as test case
2010-12: ARC Discovery Project (Axel Bruns and Jean Burgess)

Content Analysis: Individual Blogs

Content Analysis: Political Blogosphere 4-5 August 2009 (graph: Tim Highfield)

Blog-Based Online Publics in Australia
Finding Australian blogs:
from political blogs to Australian blogs in general
defined as blogs in Australia, by Australians, and/or about Australia
Approach :
drawing on existing Australian blog directories (e.g. OzBloggers.net )
self-nominated lists, often outdated – no comprehensive list
harvest and cross-check lists (active? Australian?), some initial classification
conduct network crawls from harvested population, add more blogs
repeat until… ?
Comprehensive ?
no hope of finding all Australian blogs
focus on blogs with at least some degree of visibility
appropriate for study of online publics

Early Observations
Publics in the Australian blogosphere:
key blogging themes:
maternity
food
marketing
expats
religion
identity and location not always clear, but:
Melbourne and Sydney > Brisbane > Perth and Adelaide > rest of the country
around 50%:50% male/female (+ one pet)
many sea/tree/lifechangers
next steps:
crawling out from here to extend these populations
find additional blogs and crawl their networks to fill in obvious thematic gaps
programmers
self-help
politics
arts & crafts
academic

Next Steps
Map the Australian blogosphere:
long-term map of frequent interlinkages, clusters of blog communities
how isolated or interconnected are these online publics?
Short-term maps of ad hoc networks around current events and themes
(how) do they respond to key events – e.g. Gillard’s takeover?
Trending topics and correlations with mainstream media
how do themes and topics change over time?
Patterns of information flow, structures of dissemination and influence
who passes on information within/across clusters?
Extend to other online publics:
Twitter , Flickr , YouTube – what can we track, what publics do we find?
How are these spaces interconnected?

http://snurb.info	53
http://instagib.wordpress.com	25
http://www.apo.org.au	5
http://apo.org.au	3

In Search of Australian Blogs: Determining the Extent of the Contemporary Australian Blogosphere

by Axel Bruns on Jul 09, 2010

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