Political Deliberation in the Blogosphere: The Case of the 2009 Portuguese Elections

In 2009, a unique Portuguese electoral cycle comprised european, local, and national elections. During the three month non-stop campaign period, more than a hundred experienced bloggers, supporters of the three main political parties, created three non party-sponsored blogs. These blogs were the focal point of the political blogosphere during that period and ceased their activities at the end of the electoral campaign, thus providing a unique opportunity to better understand the political blogosphere. Web mining techniques were used to obtain data concerning the visits to those blogs (from Sitemeter) and the blog’s content itself (posts, comments, and links). Data suggests that blog readers don’t look for different points of view, blog commentators usually limit themselves to one blog, bloggers do not comment on other blogs other than their own, and relatively few links exist between all three blogs. These results undermine the idea that the political blogosphere can enhance the deliberative character of the public sphere.