The power and politics of blogs

The rise of bloggers raises the vexing question of why blogs have any influence at all, given their relatively low readership and lack of central organization. We argue that to answer this question we need to focus on two key factors—the unequal distribution of readers across weblogs, and the relatively high readership of blogs among journalists and other political elites. The unequal distribution of readership, combined with internal norms and linking practices allows interesting news and opinions to rise to the “top” of the blogosphere, and thus to the attention of elite actors, whose understanding of politics may be changed by frames adopted from the blogosphere.