Blogs and the Economics of Reciprocal Attention

Gaudeul, Alexia and Peroni, Chiara and Mathieu, Laurence (2009): Blogs and the Economics of Reciprocal Attention.

Abstract

Properties of blogging networks are derived from a model where bloggers devote attention to others, produce content for others, and exchange attention with content within their network of relations. The predictions from the model are tested with a novel dataset from LiveJournal, a major blogging community. The activity of a blogger is found to be related to the size of, and level of aggregate reciprocation within that blogger's relational network. Bloggers who do not adhere to reciprocity norms are found to have less readers than their activity might otherwise have predicted.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Blog; Community; Interaction; Internet; LiveJournal; Media; Network; Reciprocity; Social Network; Web 2.0
• Subjects: L - Industrial Organization > L8 - Industry Studies: Services > L82 - Entertainment ; Media; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D85 - Network Formation and Analysis: Theory

References

Bachnik,W., S. Szymczyk, P. Leszczynski, R. Podsiadlo, E. Rymszewicz, L. Kurylo, D. Makowiec, and B. Bykowska (2005). Quantitative and sociological analysis of blog networks. Acta Physica Polonica B 36(10), 3179–3191.

Backstrom, L., D. Huttenlocher, J. Kleinberg, and X. Lan (2006). Group formation in large social networks: membership, growth and evolution. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM SIGKDD international conference on knowledge discovery and data mining, pp. 44–54. ACM:New York, NY, USA.

Bar-Ilan, J. (2005). Information hub blogs. Journal of Information Science 31(4), 297–307.

Belsley, D. (1980). Conditioning diagnostics: collinearity and weak data in regression. Wiley.

Bialik, C. (2005). Measuring the impact of blogs requires more than counting. The Wall Street Journal. May 26, http://tinyurl.com/7luge.

Bramoullé, Y. and B. Fortin (2009). The econometrics of social networks. CIRPEE Working Paper.

Brueckner, J. (2006). Frienship networks. Journal of Regional Science 46(5), 847–865.

Caffarelli, F. (2004). Non-cooperative network formation with network maintenance costs. Working Paper ECO 2004/18, European University Institute.

Dohmen, T., A. Falk, D. Huffman, and U. Sunde (2009). Homo Reciprocans: Survey evidence of behavioural outcomes. The Economic Journal 119, 592–612.

Drezner, D. and H. Farrell (2008). Introduction: Blogs, politics and power: a special issue of Public Choice. Public Choice 134, 1–13.

Fono, D. and K. Raynes-Goldie (2006). Hyperfriends and beyond: Friendship and social norms on LiveJournal. In M. Consalvo and C. Haythornthwaite (Eds.), Internet Research Annual Volume 4: Selected Papers from the Association of Internet Researchers Conference. Peter Lang: New York, USA.

Furukawa, T., T. Matsuzawa, Y. Matsuo, K. Uchiyama, and M. Takeda (2006). Analysis of user relations and reading activity in weblogs. Electronics and Communications in Japan (Part 1: Communications) 89(12), 88–96.

Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology 78(6), 1360–1380.

Greene, W. (1980). Econometric Analysis. Prentice Hall.

Gu, B., Y. Huang, W. Duan, and A. B. Whinston (2009). Indirect reciprocity in online social networks - a longitudinal analysis of individual contributions and peer enforcement in a peer-to-peer music sharing network. McCombs Research Paper Series No. IROM-06-09. http://ssrn.com/paper=1327759.

Gui, B. and R. Sugden (2005). Why interpersonal relations matter for economics. In B. Gui and R. Sugden (Eds.), Economics and Social Interactions, pp. 1–22. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

Henning, J. (2005). The blogging geyser. Newsletter of the Web Marketing Association. April 8, http://www.webmarketingassociation.org/wma_newsletter05_05_iceberg.htm.

Herring, S., L. Scheidt, S. Bonus, and E. Wright (2004). Bridging the gap: A genre analysis of weblogs. In Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 101–111.

Huck, S., G. Lünser, and J.-R. Tyran (2008). Consumer networks and firm reputation: A first experimental investigation. Technical Report 6624, CEPR.

Jackson, M. O. (2003). A survey of models of network formation: Stability and efficiency. In G. Demange and M. Wooders (Eds.), Group Formation in Economics: Networks, Clubs, and Coalitions. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Krishnamurty, S. (2002). The multidimensionality of blog conversations: The virtual enactment of September 11. In AOIR Internet Research 3.0.

Kumar, R., J. Novak, P. Raghavan, and A. Tomkins (2004). Structure and evolution of blogspace. Communications of the ACM 47(12), 35–39.

Lassica, J. (2001). Blogging as a form of journalism. Online Journalism Review. May 24, http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1017958873.php.

Lemann, N. (2006). Journalism without journalists. The New Yorker. August 7, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/07/060807fa_fact1.

Lento, T., H. Welser, L. Gu, and M. Smith (2006). The ties that blog: Examining the relationship between social ties and continued participation in the Wallop weblogging system. In 3rd Annual Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem.

Marwick, A. (2009). LiveJournal users: Passionate, prolific and private. Research Report. December 19, http://www.livejournalinc.com/press_releases/20081219.php.

Mihaly, K. (2007). Too popular for school? Friendship formation and academic achievement. Department of Economics, Duke University Working Paper NC27708.

Mishne, G. and N. Glance (2006). Leave a reply: An analysis of weblog comments. In 3rd Annual Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem.

Nardi, B. A., D. J. Schiano, and M. Gumbrecht (2004). Blogging as social activity, or, Would you let 900 million people read your diary? In Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 222–231. ACM Press.

Newman, M. E. J. (2003). The structure and function of complex networks. SIAM Review 45, 167.

Paolillo, J., S. Mercure, and E. Wright (2005). The social semantics of LiveJournal FOAF: Structure and change from 2004 to 2005. In G. Stumme, B. Hoser, C. Schmitz, and H. Alani (Eds.), Proceedings of the ISWC 2005 Workshop on Semantic Network Analysis.

Perseus Development Corporation (2003). The blogging iceberg. October 6, http://tinyurl.com/ceepn4.

Quiggin, J. (2006). Blogs, wikis and creative innovation. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9(4), 481–496.

Raynes-Goldie, K. (2004). Pulling sense out of today’s informational chaos: LiveJournal as a site of knowledge creation and sharing. First Monday 9(12). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1194/1114.

Ribstein, L. E. (2005). Initial reflections on the law and economics of blogging. University of Illinois, http://law.bepress.com/uiuclwps/papers/art25/.

Ribstein, L. E. (2006). From bricks to pajamas: The law and economics of amateur journalism. William & Mary Law Review 48, 185–249.

Schmidt, J. (2007). Blogging practices: An analytical framework. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12, 1409–1427.

Sunstein, C. (2008). Neither Hayek nor Habermas. Public Choice 134(1-2), 87–95.

Watts, A. (2001). A dynamic model of network formation. Games and Economic Behavior 34, 331–334.

Weinberg, B. (2007). Social interactions with endogenous association. NBER Working Paper 13038.

Wenger, A. (2008). Analysis of travel bloggers’ characteristics and their communication about Austria as a tourism destination. Journal of Vacation Marketing 14(2), 169–176.