This document presents the research agenda for a study analyzing the role of prominent German language blogs (A-List-Blogs) in the mainstream media agenda setting process. The study aims to determine if A-List-Blogs reinforce or challenge the mainstream media agenda through a content analysis of blog posts and their hyperlinks. It is hypothesized that while A-List-Blogs present more alternative sources, their audience links more frequently to posts discussing mainstream media issues due to established news factors. Preliminary results suggest A-List-Blogs challenge the mainstream agenda in their own content but reinforce it by attracting links to posts using mainstream sources.

1. German Language A-List-Blogs:
Reinforcement of the Mainstream Media
Agenda or a Challenge to it?
Martin Zuber, M.A.

2. Research Agenda
 What are A-List-Blogs?
 What role do they play in the Mainstream Media
Agenda Setting Process? (Literature Review)
 Criticism: Recepients not taken into account
 Research Questions
 Data
 Methods
 Results
 Added Value
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3. What are A-List-Blogs?
Figure 1.: Top 100 most linked weblogs on Technorati effective 24.01.03
Source: http://kottke.org/03/02/weblogs-and-power-laws
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4. What are A-List-Blogs?
 German language
A-List-Blogs
like netzpolitik.org or
bildblog.de have
more than 30.000
visits per day.
(Interview with Beckedahl
and Niggermeier (2009) on
http://philipbanse.de/)
Figure 2: Connection of public and relevance. Adapted from: Katzenbach 2008, 108
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5. The Agenda Setting Hypothesis
 “The power of the news media to set a nation’s
agenda, to focus public attention on a few key
public issues, is an immense and well
documented influence.”
(Wallensten 2007, 568)
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6. The Role of A-List-Blogs in the Agenda
Setting Process?
First Perspective
 A-List-Blogs are an reinforcement of the
mainstream media agenda because they tend
to rely primarily on established media outlets
for their information.
(cf. Adamic and Glance 2005, Haas 2005, McKenna 2007)
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7. The Role of A-List-Blogs in the Agenda
Setting Process?
Second Perspective
 A-List-Blogs emphasize the remarkable
information in the blogosphere by linking to
posts of small blogs. Hence A-List-Blogs are
challenging the dominance of mainstream
media by linking to alternative news providers.
(cf. Dezner and Farrell 2004, Holler et al 2008)
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8. Criticism: Recepients are not taken into
account
 The existing studies only investigate the
content provided by the A-List-Blogs
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9. Seite 9

10. Criticism: Recepients are not taken into
account
 To assess the role of A-List-Blogs, we need to
analyze the effects on the audience
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11. Research Questions
 1. Is the content provided by A-List-Blogs an
reinforcement of the mainstream media
agenda or a challenge to it?
 2. Do the recipients prefer the mainstream
media or the alternative issues?
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12. The Data
 K. Burton, A. Java, and I. Soboroff. The ICWSM 2009
Spinn3r Dataset. In Proceedings of the Third Annual
Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM
2009), San Jose, CA, May 2009.
 A set of blog posts from 1 August 2008 – 31 October
2008
 All Languages
 About 130 Gigabytes
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13. Seite 13

14. Comparison of total link count on A-List-
Blogs: Spinn3r vs. Technorati (03.12.08)
Correlation:
-> .619
Level of
significance:
-> 1%
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15. Comparison of links on A-List-Blogpost:
Spinn3r versus rivva (14.08.09)
 vhhoi
Correlation:
-> .721
Level of
significance:
-> 1%
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16. Methods
 Which are the German language A-List-Blogs?
 Sifry (2006): „The Very High Authority Group“ are blogs
with more than 500 links in the last 6 months
 www.deutscheblogcharts.de
 Within this time frame: 12
German language
Blogs 500+ links
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17. Methods: Content Analysis
 Time frame:
1 – 14 August and 12 – 25 September 2008
Two weeks in every month – from Friday to Thursday
 Found 852 posts in the data set for this time frame
(unfortunately no post of nerdcore.de -> only 11 A-List-
Blogs in the sample)
 Analyzed a 50%-random sample -> 30 posts used for
the pretest
-> 411 Posts
 Analysis unit: A-List-Blog post
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18. Methods: Content Analysis: Coding
Frame
 To identify which posts are based on mainstream
media information (RQ 1)
1. Coded the links to online mainstream media pages
(intercoder reliability = .86)
2. Coded references to offline mainstream media
sources
(intercoder reliability = .92)
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19. Methods: Hyperlink analysis
 To analyze which content is preferred by the
recipients (RQ 2)
-> Searching Posts in the data set, which are linking to
the A-List-Posts
Found -> 263 links
-> 1 post got 16 links
-> The most got 0 links
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20. Results: Content Analysis
 Just 106 posts (25.8%) are based on mainstream
media sources. 305 posts (74.2%) have alternative or
no sources.
 Answer RQ 1:
Looking only at the content provided by the A-List-
Blogs -> we would suggest, that they are more a
challenge than an reinforcement for the mainstream
media agenda
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21. Results:
Content
Analysis
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22. Results:
Content
Analysis
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23. Results: Content Analysis
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24. Results: Hyperlinkanalysis
 Posts without mainstream media source
-> Mean = .59 links
 Posts with mainstream media source
-> Mean= 1.14 links
 This difference is significant on 5%-Level.
 Answer RQ2:
The blogger (recipients) tend to link more to posts with
mainstream media content.
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25. Why?
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26. Results: Hyperlink analysis
 Reception studies
-> News factors indicate relevance (cf. Eidlers 1997)
 News Value Research
-> News in mainstream media -> biased -> extend News
Values
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27. Results
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28. Added Value
 It is important to include the audience to decide which
role the A-List-Blogs play in the agenda-setting
process
 Though A-List-Blogs present more issues from
alternative sources -> the small blogs tend to link more
often to issues of mainstream media sources
 The reason for that -> usual mechanism of reception
 Issues form mainstream media contain more news
factors
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29. Q&A
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30. Literature
Adamic, L. and N. Glance. (2005). "The political blogosphere and the 2004 presidential election." Retrieved 03.08.2009, from
http://www.blogpulse.com/papers/2005/AdamicGlanceBlogWWW.pdf.
Banse, P. (2009). "Interview mit Markus Beckedahl." Retrieved 10.03.2010, from http://philipbanse.de/wp/.
Banse, P. (2009). "Interview mit Stefan Niggemeier." Retrieved 10.03.2010, from http://philipbanse.de/wp/.
Drezner, D. W. and H. Farrell. (2004). "The Power and Politics of Blogs." Retrieved 13.10.2008, from
http://www.danieldrezner.com/research/blogpaperfinal.pdf.
Eilders, C. (1997). Nachrichtenfaktorenund Rezeption. Eine empirische Analyse zur Auswahl und Verarbeitung
politischer Information. Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag
Haas, T. (2005). "From "Public Journalism" to the "Public´s Journalism"? Rhetoric an reality in the discourse on weblogs." Journalism Studies 6:
387-396.
Holler, S., S. Vollnhalls, et al. (2008). Focal Points und Journalisten - Bedingungen für den Einfluss der Blogosphäre. Kommunikation, Partizipation
und Wirkungen im Social Web. Grundlagen und Methoden: Von der Gesellschaft zum Individuum. A. Zerfaß, M. Welker and J. Schmidt. Köln,
Herbert von Halem Verlag: 94-111.
Katzenbach, C. (2008). Weblogs und ihre Öffentlichkeiten. Motive und Strukturen der Kommunikation im Web 2.0. München, Verlag Reinhard
Fischer.
McKenna, L. (2007). "Getting the word out: Policy bloggers use their soap box to make change." Review of Policy Research 24: 209-229.
Wallensten, K. (2007). "Agenda Setting and the Blogosphere: An Analysis of the Relationship between Mainstream Media and Political Blogs."
Review of Policy Research 24: 567-587.
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