Right Thinking From The Left Coast
"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

One Big Blog Family
by West Virginia Rebel

I’m not sure I agree with this.

blog readers seem to exhibit strong homophily. That is to say, they overwhelmingly choose blogs that are written by people who are roughly in accordance with their political views. Left wingers read left wing blogs, right wingers read right wing blogs, and very few people read both left wing and right wing blogs. Those few people who read both left wing and right wing blogs are considerably more likely to be left wing themselves; interpret this as you like. Furthermore, blog readers are politically very polarized. They tend to clump around either the ‘strong liberal’ or the ‘strong conservative’ pole; there aren’t many blog readers in the center.

Granted, many blog readers can be highly opinionated-certainly the folks here are. But that doesn’t mean that blogs can’t be diverse; this one certainly is. The question is, will blogs that focus on things political move beyond that as time goes on and then get a more balanced readership. I think we’re headed for a time when, as it was in the early days of blogging circa 2000-2001, blogs will be more of a personal project. Call it the post-political blogging era, as those bloggers who are still around look for more ways to keep their blogs going.

Posted by West Virginia Rebel on 07/02/08 at 03:50 PM in Life & Culture  • (13) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Discuss this in the forums
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