Americans, of all ages, of all stations in life, and all types of dispositions are forever forming associations. They are not only commercial or industrial associations in which they all take part but others of a thousand different types - religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very minute … Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention that the intellectual and moral associations in America.
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
I stumbled on that passage - appropriate unto the day, for what is declared independence if not a precondition for happier association? - while poking around regarding blogging and social networks and such, following up Henry’s interesting ‘blogosphere as 18th century coffee-house’ post, following up Laura at Apartment 11D’s ‘blogging polis’ post. (I’d tell you who posted that Tocqueville passage, but I’ve forgotten.)
One of the more interesting things I stumbled on was this post on “Weblogs and Authority” - and the associated full-length conference paper version (PDF) - on Cameron Marlow’s blog, Overstated. His conclusion is intuitive; anyway, it’s what I would have guessed. You could measure your authority in terms of the number of blogrolls you grace, or by the number of permalinks you garner; there is considerable divergence between the two measures. There’s folks that get blogrolled, but seldom linked, and vice versa. Which makes sense for a host of reasons that readily spring to mind. As Marlow points out, blogrolls naturally tend to lag behind the influence curve. They contain a lot of dead wood, basically. (Marlow is hereby attempting to chip away at Clay Shirky’s thesis that the blogging rich get richer, winner-take-all power law-wise.)
Bottom line: Marlow’s got some interesting data and charts, even if he is basically arguing something that seems intuitively right, hence unsurprising.
Here’s my question for the day: how many blogospheres are there? I mean: if you saw a stellar map of the blog universe it wouldn’t be one sphere. At a rough guess, we would gaze at two major galaxies - techblogging and US politics blogging. These would be loosely interpenetrating. Each galaxy would, uncoincidentally, be loosely centered on a core of A-list blogs. And there would be a huge number of systems and sub-systems and rings within the galaxies. For example, it would be interesting to see to what degree the right and left political blogospheres are mutually delinked. (And of course ‘right and left’ is far too simple.) There would obviously be a number of respectable formations gravitationally attracted neither to tech nor politics. And there would be the gargantuan quantity of dark matter that probably makes up 95% of total blogospheric mass: livejournals and dedicated catblogging, lunchblogging and all the truly personal, mostly unlinked stuff that probably even google can’t detect.
And then there is the question of historical development. The Big Bang - I guess it was 9/11 - and how it all exploded out from there.
Has any ambitious student of social networks attempted a comprehensive map of the bloggy heavens, plotting, say, the interlinks of the top 5,000 (from technorati or blogstreet or wherever seems best)? It would be monadology rather than astronomy: everything what and where it is in virtue of the collective perceptions/appetitions of everything else. As such, it would probably have to be rendered in more than three dimensions to do justice. What I would be most curious about would be the degree to which these social networks constitute subject indexs; or indexes of distinct perspectives.
Well, that’s a vague notion, but just suppose you have map in hand. You have ‘hotspots’, i.e. especially link-rich nodes. Popular single blogs or clusters of closely interlinked blogs that, added together, amount to something. What do such clusters mean? Obviously there is sociology to be done regarding a social network of blogs, as with any social network. But studying the relations between law blogs and philosophy blogs and lit blogs and web design blogs and libertarian blogs, etc., has an axis of potential interest plausibly missing from most social networks. The blogosphere really is an idea space AND a social space. The links mean personal ties - alliances and enmities - but also argumentative ties, or at least connections between ideas or subjects. It would be interesting to study relationships right on the line between relationships between social structures and idea clusters. Strange elective affinities might come to light. Do law profs blog about comic books more or less than philosophy profs, as measured by some index of proximity between the subsystems of philosophy and law blogs and the subsystem of comic book blogs? Idly inquiring minds would like to know, in an idle sort of holiday inquiring way.
And this question is just an example. I realize it’s not exactly burning, but it gets at the sorts of odd juxtapositions and connections I think might come to light, simply from an extremely ingenious and laborious study of link structures.
I gotta go eat two hamburgers and drink three beers. Happy 4th of July!
Burp!
All of this data should of course be correlated with the Blogshares price of the various blogs being studied. My loving co-blogger, Robb Schuneman, has seen his net worth increase by over 600,000% in the last month on Blogshares. He claims it’s a good way to find out about up and coming blogs.
Perhaps some economics bloggers should take on this project.
Funny, I just posted several quotations from Tocqueville at B&W a couple of days ago. But it wasn’t that one, so I can’t claim the prize. Oh, no prize? Okay, I can’t claim the glory then.
On LiveJournals: Please note that not all LiveJournals are personal. There are LiveJournal communities devoted to politics, synesthesia, etc.
Nowhere is the metaphor of the blind wiziers and the elephant more accurate.
The meta-whatevers are a good place to begin maybe, of which CT is sort of one. But even that. It’s so big. It’s like generalizing about the American public - only possible in the broadest and simplest terms.
This may be the most truly egalitarian public space we’re capable of without telepathic mind-meld. It’s precisely the non-cataloged open-ness that makes it so.
Blogshares is a rather poor way of judging a blog’s popularity. It’s not at all like the Iowa Electronic Markets or even like fantasy stock market games. In Blogshares, a single player can manipulate the value of a blog rather dramatically with just a few transactions, and the system barely corrects for it at all.
Something like Blogshares would be fascinating, but as it stands, the game just isn’t what it ought to be.
We’re using SNA (social network analysis) in the project I mentioned earlier. But we don’t have the kind of sample you’re talking about, ours is much smaller. Nonetheless, I think it will yield interesting results. We’ll keep you posted.
DeLong started a conversation in the same place a few days ago.
The “dark matter” of personal blogging is a lovely metaphor.
To tangle the situation even more, I suggest the blogospheres behave differently in different cultures. Australian blogging has these strange indentations and mobius moments when staunch opponents cross over to sport, rock and roll or just tecchie stuff, and become endearingly co-operative.
I suspect your Canadian neighbours have a distintive blogosphere - certainly its members do rear back and identify themselves culturally.
The Brits remain a complete mystery to me. And why are there so many funny people in Seattle?
“And why are there so many funny people in Seattle?”
Are there? Who? Where? Can I have their phone numbers?
The techblog explosion was in 1999. And many of the most popular post-Sept. 2001 politics blogs existed before then.
Damn Ms Ophelia, now you’ve set me a project..
http://www.defectiveyeti.com/
http://www.izzlepfaff.com/
And of course I can’t find any more. But I know they are out there!
ps - in my small self-justifying search, I surely did see a lot of baby snaps.
Hey, I’m a native of Seattle.
They kicked me out because I wasn’t funny enough.
Oh is that how it works! I’m not a native of Seattle, but I guess they must have lured me here because I am more than funny enough.
Thanks David. Two, eh? Poor ol’ Seattle…
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review