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Abstract:
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Some believe that the Internet has the potential to make real the promise of democracy's a government of and for the people; others fear that the Internet will fundamentally undermine democracy by Balkanizing society. Those who believe in the democratizing nature of the Internet argue that the Internet is a powerful medium for disseminating information, which allows individuals to share their ideas as well as respond to the opinions of others. The goal of this thesis is to theoretically and empirically contribute to this debate. More specifically, this thesis attempted to understand whether the blogosphere - widely lauded as the most democratic corner of the Internet - supports political discourse. Towards that end, the work of Jurgen Habermas, James Curran, C. Edwin Baker, Evertt Rogers and others are synthesized to develop a theory that both defines the requirements that democracy imposes upon media and describes how over time, due to commercialization, new mediums lose the ability to satisfy these requirements. Then, in an attempt to show the plausibility of the theory, the case of the American newspaper industry is presented. Finally, the theory is evaluated in light of the history and current state of the blogosphere. To analyze the current state of discourse in the blogosphere this study utilizes social network analysis. More specifically, this thesis examines the networks that emerge within the blogosphere in reaction to op-ed pieces published in Washington Post for evidence of link reciprocity. It further examines those networks that show evidence link reciprocity for evidence of communication between members of different groups, and evidence of communication among members of the same group. It finds that the vast majority of these networks show no evidence of link reciprocity. This indicates that discourse in the blogosphere maybe rare. Further, it finds that links among members of the same group are more common then links among members of different groups. |