Political Influence of the Blogosphere: Red vs. Blue

Researchers Natalie Glance and Lada Adamic (of BlogPulse and HP Labs, respectively) have written a fantastic paper documenting the degree of interaction and behavior among top conservative and liberal blogs in the months leading to November's election. They examine the posts of 40 "A-list" blogs, and provide a snapshot of 1000 political blogs on a single day.

Highlights?

• Almost an equal number of influential liberal and conservative blogs.
  
  
• Conservative blogs showed a greater tendency to link to other blogs (84% linking vs. 74% liberal linking).
  
  
• Clear preference lines were drawn as to which news sources to cite (Fox News vs. Los Angeles Times, for example).
  
  
• Liberal blogs referred to Bush more than conservative blogs, and conservative blogs referred more to Kerry than liberal blogs.
  

Hmm. I hate such stark divisions - red state vs. blue state and all that. Makes us all seem much more distant and different than we really are. Remember, we truly all live in a purple state.