ISOJ 2005

1. Vital Habits:
Community Weblogs in Action
Lou Rutigliano
PhD Student
UT-Austin School of Journalism

2. Spectators or Participants?
Walter Lippmann
-Public Affairs Too Complex for Public
-Experts Must Analyze it For Citizens
John Dewey
-Passive Audience = Weak Democracy
-Role of Press to Provide Public Forum

3. Dewey’s Descendents:
Community Weblogs
Seek Broad Public Participation
Encourage Conversation and Interaction
Give Audience Active Role
Citizen-Driven not Institution-Driven

4. Four Factors to Monitor
• Contributors
• Interactivity
• Relationship to Institutions
• Level of Control

5. Community Weblog Evaluation
Lecture Conversation
Contributors Few Many
Interactivity Low High
Institutions High Presence Low Presence
Control High Low

6. Case Study: UnknownCity.com

7. Event Coverage:
Unofficial SXSW
-high member interest
-little information available
-informal
-varied, unpredictable

8. Results:
1) Self-Generated Coverage

9. Results:
2) Members Build on Posts

10. Results:
3) Offline & Online Interaction

11. Results:
4) Central Control Critical

12. Conclusions
-Untraditional content for an untraditional
medium
-Overlap between online and offline worlds
-Media as service rather than product
-Centralization: a self-fulfilling prophecy