Daekyung Kim;Thomas J. Johnson

This study examines the motivations for why politically interested Internet users in the United States access political blogs and attempts to discover which factors predict motivations for using political blogs. Political surveillance/guidance motives appeared as the strongest motivation for using political blogs, followed by expression/affiliation, convenience/information seeking, and entertainment. Hierarchical regression analysis reveals that blog users with higher levels of political involvement and strength of party affiliation are attracted to political blogs to freely express their political opinion and communicate with other like-minded people, which may indicate the potential of Weblogs as an interactive political discursive space. Based on the findings, this study presents implications and suggestions for future research.

Given the growing use and popularity of Weblogs as a new form of news and information on the Internet over the last decade, many scholars have conducted studies to gain an in-depth understanding of motivations for accessing blogs, credibility of blog content , and the role of blogs as an alternative source of information during the second Iraq war. In particular, blogs have become an important source of political news and information in the United States through the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.

Accordingly, with special attention to why American people try to access political blogs this study examines what motivates people to rely on and read political blogs. This study employs the uses and gratification framework to examine motivations for why politically interested Internet users access political blogs. Furthermore, this study explores if demographics,political attitudes, Internet use, and blog reliance predict motivations for accessing political blogs.

In examining the media effect, uses and gratification research tends to focus more on examining how people use the media rather than what the media do to people. Thus, uses and gratifications research is based on the notion that audience members are active and goal-oriented with an ability to evaluate different types of functions media may serve, and users are considered to actively seek out media messages to satisfy their social and psychological wants and needs. However, some criticized the uses and gratification approach because it was too individualistic in examining effects of media use. White also contended that because of too much focus on individual needs and motivations the uses and gratification research has failed to deal with the media use process within the social structure.

During the past several decades, many researchers have developed typologies of how people use media content to gratify social and psychological needs. In particular, past studies have found that the four primary dimensions of news media gratifications are surveillance, personal identity, personal relationships/social utility, and diversion gratifications.Rubin also found the two different patterns in media consumption: ritualized use and instrumental use. The former means that people often use media content more habitually for diversion, while the latter is more active and purposive because people intentionally seek out media content to gratify certain needs.

With such a user-centered perspective, Ruggiero contended that uses and gratifications research can serve as "a cutting-edge theoretical approach" to gain a better understanding of possible influences of the newly emerging communication media because the real effects of the new media come from why and how people use them for specific purposes.As a result, many studies have employed the uses and gratifications approach to examining how and why people are using the Internet and its interactive applications such as e-mail, bulletin boards, and chat rooms.

Studies have found that the Internet in general serves gratifications similar to traditional media such as entertainment,escape and social interaction needs. By contrast, others argue that the Web differs from traditional mass media because of its interactive nature, which allows and requires audiences to be more active and purposive in seeking out media content.

In order to gain a better understanding of the unique motivations for accessing the Internet, it is important to understand the implications of the interactive nature of Internet technology. The Internet not only allows for one-way interactions, but also two-way or multiple way interactions, enabling users to actively participate in the process of information creation, distribution, and consumption in an online environment. The interactive nature of Internet technology can generate different levels of user activity, which is vital in a uses and gratification context. Thus, the interactive components of Internet technology may serve different needs and create new dimensions of gratifications.

Weblogs gained great popularity during the following days after September 11, 2001 and emerged as an important and alternative source of news and information among Internet users during the second Iraq war.Early blogs were link-driven sites with some commentary and personal notes. But the unique characteristic of blogs is that with little technical expertise people can express their opinions and communicate with others, blurring the traditional boundary between consumers and producers of information.

More important, blogs became "a new force in national politics" as a channel for production, dissemination, and consumption of political information during the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections in the US. Indeed, many of online political users obtained campaign news from alternative news sources including political issue-oriented Web sites and blogs. Eveland and Dylko discovered that blog readers were more likely to use alternative forms of political communication, such as e-mail and discussion forums, than non-readers, and that blog reading was significantly associated with political participation.

While bloggers and blog readers have little faith and show a growing distrust in traditional news media, blogs have been judged by Internet politically interested users at least as credible as traditional media or even more credible than traditional media sources. Johnson and Kay also found that when asked why blog readers relied on blogs for information, they reported that blogs could serve as alternative sources of news not filtered by the traditional media.

Despite the personal nature of blogs as a private online diary,Lasica argued that blogs are creating a new form of journalism because ordinary people can publish their own thoughts and stories about a diversity of social issues in the blogosphere. Gillmor also noticed that open source network of blogs makes it possible for ordinary people to deliver their expertise in certain areas more in-depth than professionals.

As for the possible effects of blogs on politics, the blogosphere has been touted as "a democratic and interactive space" in which ordinary citizens freely express their voices and communicate with others . Given the growing attention to the political impact of blogs, one of the important topics is to understand how blogs help citizens engage in political conversations.

Some researchers have employed the uses and gratifications theory to find out motivations for why people read blog content and participate in the blogosphere. Results of past uses and gratifications studies indicate that the different content and transmission mode of the media can create different level of audience activity, also influencing the way to gratify people' needs from the media. While audiences of traditional media such as television, newspapers, and radios tend to be passive users, the Internet requires greater levels of user attention and activity.

3.1 Political attitudes and blogs

Research has found that bloggers and blog readers harbor a high level of distrust of government and the traditional media,but they also had a higher level of political self-efficacy, an ability to bring about political and social change. Political blogs are the second most common type on the blogosphere,and blog readers tend to be political junkies with an increased level of political involvement since first accessing blogs.

Because the content of blogs often mirrors the ideological leaning of the owners, the blogroll, a list of blog links recommended by the blogger, tends to follow ideological leanings and attract people who hold the same political views examined political blogs in the 2004 presidential campaign and found that 91% of blogroll links remained within partisan communities. Also, Welsch found that there was no overlap between right-leaning and left-leaning political bloggers’ link citations. Meraz content-analyzed the Howard Dean political blog and found that the candidate blog was primarily used as a place for supporters to self-organize and endorse the candidate, thereby encouraging more partisan dialogue rather than democratic dialogue. Those findings demonstrate that there is a partisan segmentation in the blogosphere. Accordingly, Sunstein was concerned about the polarized blogosphere in which liberals are linked with liberals and conservatives with conservatives, thereby obtaining one-side views of political issues.

3.2 Demographics and blogs

According to surveys, blog readers seem very similar to the early adopters of the Internet: White, young, well-educated,affluent, and male. Studies found little connection between demographics and blog variables. For example, Johnson and Kaye found that no demographic variable predicted blog credibility. Eveland and Dylko found that only education was associated with blog use.

 

 

在过去的十年里，不断扩大的使用规模以及微博的普及使得微博开始成为在互联网上发布新闻和信息的新平台。许多学者都对此进行了研究，以深入了解访问博客的动机、博客内容的可信度以及微博在第二次伊拉克战争中作为一个可替代的信息源所发挥的作用。特别是通过2004年和2008年的总统选举，博客在美国已经成为政治新闻和信息的重要来源。

因此，本研究通过对美国人民访问政治博客的原因的特别关注来探究公众关注政治博客的动机，并采用了“使用与满足”理论框架来研究公众关注政治微博的动机，此外，本研究还结合了人口统计学、公众政治态度、网络使用度以及对博客的依赖度等多方面因素进行了研究。

就媒体效果方面来说，“使用与满足”理论更多的是在关注公众如何去使用媒体而非媒体对公众的作用。因此，“使用与满足”理论是一个基于受众是积极的且以目标为导向的概念，即受众具有评价不同类型的媒体服务功能的能力，并且该理论假设受众总是主动地在寻找媒体信息以满足他们社会与心理的需要和需求的。然而，也有一部分人对“使用与满足”理论是持反对态度的，他们认为该理论在研究媒体使用的影响方面过于个人主义。他们争辩说，正由于太过于关注个人的需求与动机，所以在处理媒介使用的社会结构进程方面“使用与满足”理论是失败的。

从用户的角度来说，鲁宾罗称“使用与满足”理论可以替代“切割边缘理论”去帮助人们更好地了解新型传播媒体可能产生的影响，因为新媒体的真正影响来自于人们为特定目的而使用它们的原因以及方式。因此，许多研究都运用“使用与满足”理论来探究人们使用互联网以及一些交互式程序如电子邮件、布告栏、聊天室的原因及方式。

要对访问互联网的动因有更好的理解，最重要的就是要加强对网络技术互动性影响的理解。互联网不仅允许一种单向的互动，而且允许双向互动路径的存在，它让用户在在线的环境中积极的参与到信息的创造、分配与消费中去。在“使用与满足”理论中，网络技术的互动性可以产生不同程度的用户活跃度是至关重要。因此，网络技术的互动性可以满足更多不同的需求甚至创造出一个新的需求满意度层次。

第二次伊拉克战争期间微博作为一个重要的可替换的新闻与信息资源出现，在2001年9月11日后开始逐渐流行起来。早期的博客只是一种个人用户的评论与记录的链接驱动。但是博客具有一些独特的特性，它可以让没有什么技术专长的人在博客上表达自己的观点与他人进行交流与联系，并且模糊了传统意义上信息生产与接收者的界限。

更重要的是，博客开始成为“国家政治中的新力量”，就像在2004到2008年的美国总统选举中一样，扮演一个政治信息的生产、传播和消费的渠道。的确，许多在线的政治用户都在从不同的消息来源获取竞选新闻包括政治问题导向的网站和博客。艾维兰德和达科发现博客阅读者更喜欢使用各种不同形式的政治沟通方式阅读博客以及参与政治，如电子邮件、论坛、非读者。

至于博客在政治上的影响力，现今博客已被吹捧为普通公民可以自由表达他们的声音且与他人进行沟通的一个“民主互动空间”。鉴于对博客的政治影响力的不断关注，一个重要的议题形成了，即了解博客是如何帮助公民进行政治交流的。

一些研究人员已经运用“使用与满足”理论找出了人们阅读博客内容并参加到博客中的动机了。过去的“使用与满足”的研究结果表明，不同的媒体内容和传输模式可以创建出不同层次的受众活动，同时也影响利用媒体去满足公众需求的方式。与网络媒体相比，电视，报纸，收音机等传统媒体的受众往往是被动的用户，所以，这就要求互联网用户在进行关注和活动时需要更高的能力水平。

3.1 政治态度与博客

因为博客的内容往往反映了博客主的思想倾向，且由博客主建立起来的博客链接，往往也遵循的同样的思想倾向并吸引持相同政见的人关注。通过对2004年总统竞选的政治博客的研究，发现91％的博客链接都在党派社区内保持一致。此外，韦尔施甚至发现有右倾和左倾的倾向的博客主之间的政治博客链接几乎没有重叠。麦若兹对霍华德·迪安的政治博客进行了内容肥西，发现候选人博客主要是用来作为一个支持者进行自我组织和认可的候选人的地方，从而鼓励的是更多的党派对话，而不是民主对话。这些研究结果表明，在博客群中是存在党派分割的。因此，桑斯坦曾通过关注自由派关注自由派、保守派关注保守派的偏振博客去获得政治问题的不同侧面。

3.2 人口统计学与博客