Understanding Blogspace

ABSTRACT Scholarship on the blogosphere is still in its infancy. One of the core challenges is that the term “blog” is overbroad, referring to a wide range of disparate activities that are problematically grouped together. This article presents a four-part typology of blogspace that separates blogs on the basis of software platform design features and embeddedness within existing institutions of authority. It applies this typology to the top 25 progressive and conservative blogs to arrive at a series of observations about the relative strength of the left and right blogging communities, along with identifying areas for future research in the use and development of blog technology. 1