The Political Blogging A-List

From the new book by Rutgers Speech Communications Professor Tanni Haas, Making It In the Political Blogosphere: The World's Top Political Bloggers Share the Secrets to Success:

While more than a million people have political blogs, a select few wield enormous inl uence within the political blogosphere and in politics. Variously referred to as the “political blogging A-list,” the “influentials,” or even the “kings and queens of blogland,” these bloggers attract the majority of political blog readers, set the agenda for the many smaller blogs, are widely read by mainstream journalists and, as I describe in the next section, exert a strong impact on politics.

Political blog readership isn’t evenly distributed as the top blogs attract most of the readers. One study revealed that the top 10 blogs account for 48% of readers.

The 20 bloggers featured in this book, all of whom belong to the political blogging A-list, have a combined daily audience of 2–3 million readers. The top blogs aren’t only read by a large and ever growing audience; they also inl uence what the rest of the political blogosphere blogs about. This becomes clear when one considers how political bloggers link to one another. If there were no agenda-setters in the political blogosphere, all political blogs would have roughly the same number of incoming links from other blogs. Yet, research shows, a few top blogs receive the bulk of incoming links. A study of more than 400 political blogs found that, while the top 12 blogs attracted 20% of all incoming blog links, the top 50 blogs attracted 50% of all such links.

h e inl uence of the top blogs goes beyond the mass of smaller blogs. Mainstream journalists — political reporters and columnists in particular — regularly read political blogs, often several blogs daily. h ey do so to gather ideas for future stories, hear what’s being said in the political blogosphere about their reporting, and to gauge public reactions to major news events.

But journalists don’t just read any political blog they happen to encounter. Like political blog readers, their reading is also focused on a few top blogs. A study of 140 journalists employed by national and local news organizations in the U.S. found that the ten most widely read blogs accounted for 54% of those mentioned. Among journalists working for national news organizations, this bias was even more pronounced: the ten most widely read blogs accounted for almost 75% of those mentioned.

Journalists’ blog reading behavior is quite logical. Since the top blogs attract the majority of political blog readers, and set the agenda for countless smaller blogs, journalists only need to read these blogs to get a relatively accurate impression of public (and blogger) opinion with respect to certain issues.

Haas interviewed 20 bloggers for the book. Here's this, from the e-mail she sent to me:

Dear Donald,

I am writing to let you know that my book, “Making it in the Political Blogosphere,” has just been released by Lutterworth Press. For your information, I have attached an electronic version of it.

The book features profiles of and interviews with 20 of world’s top political bloggers. These include (in alphabetical order) Rogers Cadenhead, Steve Clemons, Juan Cole, Cheryl Contee, Tyler Cowen, Kevin Drum, Eric Garris, Nick Gillespie, Taegan Goddard, Jane Hamsher, John Hawkins, Jim Hoft, Arianna Huffington, Thomas Lifson, Andrew Malcolm, Eric Olsen, Heather Parton, Lew Rockwell, Ben Smith, and Mathew Yglesias.

The book focuses on two central questions: what these bloggers have done to become so successful, and what others can do to achieve similar blogging success.

A book such as this one – aimed at political blog readers and writers – can best reach its targeted audience with your help. I hope you will publicize it on your blog and encourage as many of your fellow political bloggers as possible to do the same.

I'm more than happy to.

The Amazon link is here, and friends can email me for more information.