Vital Habits: Community Weblogs in Action

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Vital Habits Community Weblogs in Action

• Lou Rutigliano
• PhD Student
• UT-Austin School of Journalism

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Spectators or Participants?

• Walter Lippmann
• -Public Affairs Too Complex for Public
• -Experts Must Analyze it For Citizens
• John Dewey
• -Passive Audience Weak Democracy
• -Role of Press to Provide Public Forum

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Deweys Descendents Community Weblogs

• Seek Broad Public Participation
• Encourage Conversation and Interaction
• Give Audience Active Role
• Citizen-Driven not Institution-Driven

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Four Factors to Monitor

• Contributors
• Interactivity
• Relationship to Institutions
• Level of Control

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Community Weblog Evaluation
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Case Study UnknownCity.com
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Event CoverageUnofficial SXSW

• -high member interest
• -little information available
• -informal
• -varied, unpredictable

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Results 1) Self-Generated Coverage
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Results2) Members Build on Posts
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Results3) Offline Online Interaction
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Results4) Central Control Critical
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Conclusions

• -Untraditional content for an untraditional
  medium
• -Overlap between online and offline worlds
• -Media as service rather than product
• -Centralization a self-fulfilling prophecy