The Star did a story on some communications academics who tried to measure the impact of bloggers at the Liberal leadership convention.
... What impact did this online punditry and citizen journalism have on the actual race?
That's what Greg Elmer, 39, and his team of six grad students in the joint Ryerson-York Communication and Culture program was trying to find out with the "Code Politics" research project. For the past three months, the team tracked online news media and more than 14,000 blog posts to compare the kind of coverage candidates were getting, what the bloggers were saying about them and the tone in which they were saying it.
They used charts, graphs and tickers to measure such things as positive and negative tones or the amount of buzz each candidate was getting.
The most interesting aspect of the research report was finding out where bloggers fit into the various campaigns and how they compared to traditional media.
"During the campaign itself they played an integral role in getting the word out amongst the grassroots across the country (about fundraising and events)," said Elmer. It seems as if the party was using this race to test various Internet strategies it could use in the next general election, he added.
Bloggers also reacted strongly to controversies on the campaign trail, helping gaffes and scandals stick around longer than spin doctors would hope. Elmer said the hottest topics were dead people receiving membership cards, the crime de guerre comment and allegations a candidate had plagiarized David Suzuki. ...
... Elmer said his research also suggests the idea of blogger as citizen journalist is still largely a myth.
"Are bloggers breaking stories? That we found was really just not a big issue," Elmer said.