The publication of Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere by John Kelly, and Bruce Etling at Harvard demonstrates the way in which mapping the networks of bloggers can provide and insight into the way they cluster around certain topics. This is the image that study produced;
Both image and report can be downloaded from Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
The report offers insights both into the blogosphere itself and the techniques of mapping. It is based on the tendency for groups or networks to have common sources of information, key topics, and expressions, as well as links to each other. This sort of clustering has been highlighted by Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James M Cook in BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Homophily in Social Networks.
This clustering is also important in understanding the way people interact in virtual worlds as Edward Castronova’s has demonstred in his analysis of online games.
This report pushes the understanding of the particular blogosphere which the authors identify well beyond what is possible from personal experience and expresses it in a way which text cannot. Just as the Harvard study was based on mapping followed by more detailed analysis of blogs at key points in the network, so an international communication programme can use the same technique to reach key members of a network.
Whether an organisation engages these key individuals with a messaging exercise, or dialogue designed to work toward collective action, will depend on the methodology of the organisation and the goal of the programme.