A hyperlink network analysis of citizen blogs in South Korean politics

Park, Han Woo (author), Jankowski, Nicholas W. (author)

Citizen participation may become more deeply integrated into political environments as digital communication technologies such as the Internet and mobile phone are increasingly embedded in everyday life during the coming decade. In the Asian context, there is already an important role for digital media in the political arena as participatory communication channels in high-tech countries, such as South Korea, as well as in technologically less developed countries like the Philippines. In particular, the political use of blogs has been increasing due to the possibility to publish material online quickly and to distribute content with other bloggers. Because of these characteristics, blogs are perceived as both personal and collaborative media.The relational aspects of blogs, however, have not been sufficiently explored. That is the objective of this article and, based on data collected in July and August 2005, two analyses are presented. First, we examine citizenblogs that politicians frequently visit. Second, we analyse the co-inlinks to citizen blogs and attempt to ascertain the relation between these co-inlinks and the inter-linkage patterns among citizens. The fi ndings indicate that the preferred target of politicians' blogs is more likely to be those blogs maintained by citizens who explicitly express a political stance. In addition, the co-inlinks from a politician's list of neighbours to citizen blogs is associated with the inter-linkage network structure.

• Language: English
• Work type: Not categorized
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Year: 2008
• Number of pages: Str. 57-74
• Numbering: Vol. 15, no. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-75091
• UDC: 316.77:32
• ISSN on article: 1318-3222
• COBISS.SI-ID: 27435869
• Publication date in RUL: 21.12.2015

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Javnost
• Shortened title: Javnost
• Publisher: Taylor&Francis
• ISSN: 1318-3222
• COBISS.SI-ID: 40119808

Secondary language

• Language: Unknown

Abstract

Državljanska participacija bo lahko postala tesneje povezana s političnimi okolji, saj postajajo komunikacijske tehnologije, kot sta internet in mobilna telefonija, vse bolj sestavni del vsakdanjega življenja. V Aziji imajo digitalni mediji že pomembno vlogo v politični areni, kot na primer participativni komunikacijski kanali v visoko tehnoloških državah, kot je Južna Koreja, pa tudi v manj razvitih državah kot so Filipini. Posebej narašča vloga blogov, ker je na njih mogoče hitro objavljati in vsebino posredovati drugim blogerjem. Blogi tako postajajo tako osebni kot kolaborativni medij. Članek obravnava drugi vidik na primeru korejskih politikov: proučuje državljanske bloge, ki jih politiki obiskujejo, in odnose med blogi. Raziskava med drugim kaže, da politiki raje obiskujejo tiste bloge,na katerih državljani eksplicitno izražajo svoja politična stališča.