Abstract
As the blogosphere has expanded outside its original US context, it has changed from an extended community in which everyone shares a roughly similar set of suppositions and languages to a set of separate blogospheres characterized by different cultures and languages. Bridgebloggers—bloggers who seek to mediate between these cultures and languages—play an increasingly crucial role in connecting these disparate spheres of conversation and argument together. In this paper, I discuss the difficulties of quantifying the extent to which the blogosphere is characterized by different language communities and national communities. I employ qualitative evidence to examine blogospheres emerging in Asia, Southern Africa, the Arab-speaking world and elsewhere, and to assess the importance of bridgebloggers in drawing connections between them.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Al-Assi, R. (2005). Explosions rock Jordanian capital, Amman. Global Voices. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/11/09/explosions-rock-jordanian-capital-amman/.
Alavi, N. (2004). Freedom in Farsi blogs. The Guardian, Monday, December 20, 2004. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs/story/0,14024,1377538,00.html.
Al-Yousif, M. (2005). State censorship in disguise. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://mahmood.tv/2005/05/12/state-censorship-in-disguise/.
BBC News (2005). Iranian election ‘not fraudulent.’ BBC News, June 20, 2005. Retrieved on May 27, 2007 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4110792.stm.
Committee to Protect Journalists (2004). Attacks on the press 2004: South Korea. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.cpj.org/attacks04/asia04/south_korea.html.
Conor, A. (2005). Music blogs close ears to live8. BBC Magazine, July 4, 2005. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4649043.stm.
Glaser, M. (2005). Business school flap a ‘breakout moment’ for Indian blogosphere. Online Journalism Review, October 26, 2005. Retrieved May 28, 2007 from http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/051026glaser/.
Hurst, M. (2006). 24 Hours in the blogosphere. Accepted for publication by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence.
Fuhimura, I., & Sugisaki, M. (2005). The eigenrumor algorithm for ranking blogs. Paper presented at WWW2005 conference, May 10, 2005, Chiba, Japan.
Galtung, J., & Ruge, M. (1965). The structure of foreign news. Journal of Peace Research, 2, 64–90.
Jami, M. (2005). Iranian blogs take on the election. BBC Persian, 17 June, 2005. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4099380.stm.
Jones, M. (2005). Tsunami coverage dwarfs ‘forgotten’ coverage. Reuters Foundation AlertNet. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/111044767025.htm.
Languagehat (2003). Blog languages, Languagehat. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000942.php.
Lawrence, G., & Giles, C.L. (1998). Searching the World Wide Web. Science, 280, 98–100.
Le Meur, L. (2005). The world goes beyond English speaking blogs. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2005/08/technorati_and_.html.
Macha, N. (2005a). Kiswahili blogosphere. Global Voices. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2005/06/05/kiswahili-blogosphere/.
Macha, N. (2005b). Pop!Tech: Negroponte na kompyuta za dola 100. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://jikomboe.blogspot.com/2005/10/poptech-negroponte-na-kompyuta-za-dola.html.
Matenwa, N. (2005). Kenya and the constitutional referendum. Global Voices.
Mookerji, N. (2005). Blogosphere takes off in India. The Financial Express, May 25, 2005. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=91895.
Muganda, C. (2005). Claycourt: houses of corruption. The Nation. Retrieved July 23, 2007 from http://allafrica.com/stories/200502240777.html.
Murray, B. (2000). Sizing the Internet. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache: gyUXGu3_oA8J: www.cyveillance.com/web/downloads/Sizing_the_Internet.pdf+Murray,+%E2%80 %9CSizing+the+Internet%E2%80%9D,+July+2000&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us.
Okolloh, O. (2005). Bananas (apples?) and oranges. Kenyan Pundit. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.kenyanpundit.com/?p=8.
Pelta-Heller, Z. (2005). Building blogs. Alternet, February 20, 2005. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21316/,?page=1.
Reporters Sans Frontières (2004). Internet under surveillance 2004: Tunisia. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10768.
Reporters Sans Frontières (2005). Blogger cleared of “insult to prophets” but still guilty of “insulting supreme guide.” Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=12564.
Sabnis, G. (2005a). The Fraud that is IIPM. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://gauravsabnis.blogspot.com/2005/08/fraud-that-is-iipm.html.
Sabnis, G. (2005b). An update. Retrieved May 28, 2007 from http://gauravsabnis.blogspot.com/2005/10/update.html.
Sifry, D. (2005). State of the blogosphere, August 2005, Part 5: The A-list and the long tail. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.technorati.com/weblog/2005/08/39.html.
Sifry, D. (2007). The state of the live Web, April 2007. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html.
The Thinker (2005a). Job openings. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://thinkersroom.blogspot.com/2005/02/job-openings_15.html.
The Thinker (2005b). The clay court affair, Part IV. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://thinkersroom.blogspot.com/2005/03/clay-court-affair-part-iv.html.
The Thinker (2005c). Live 8? Please!. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://thinkersroom.blogspot.com/2005/06/live-aid-please.html.
Yahoo! (2005). Our blog is growing up and so has our index. Yahoo! Search Blog. Retrieved May 27, 2005 from http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000172.html.
Zuckerman, E. (2003). Global attention profiles – A working paper. Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2003-06. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=487943.
Zuckerman, E. (2004). Hoder’s talk at Berkman. My Heart’s in Accra. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=637.
Zuckerman, E. (2005a). Indian bloggers put IIPM’s feet to the fire. Retrieved May 28, 2007 from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=208.
Zuckerman, E. (2005b). Round-up: Africans on Live 8. Global Voices. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=263.
Viswanathan, N. (2005). India: defending freedom of speech. Global Voices. Retrieved May 28, 2007 from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/10/10/india-defending-freedom-of-speech/.