Rarely Advocating
Bloggers were hesitant to describe themselves as advocates. This is reflected in
their descriptions of their actual blog activities. All the bloggers reported occasionally
notifying their readers about upcoming votes. All of the bloggers informed their readers
about the political stances of elected officials, although they did it rarely. Only Elizabeth
reported that she had a post alerting her readers to upcoming rally. Only three of the nine
bloggers reported that they had asked their readers to write a political official. Meyers
said that he had provided links to e-mail addresses and street addresses. He had also
suggested how to write a letter to a person of authority. “Don’t call them an idiot,”
Myers advised his readers. None of the bloggers reported that they asked their readers to
donate money to a candidate, cause, or interest group.
The Oil Drum was the only blog in the study that produced a press release aimed
at political elites to call attention to their issue. Their press release, “The Politics of Oil:
The Discourse Must Change,” explained that less and less oil is being produced, resulting
in greater political instability. They asked their readers to distribute it to their
representatives (The Oil Drum 2006).
There have been some notable examples of bloggers using their blogs to donate
money to campaigns. Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com),
directed more than $750,000 to the Democratic Party and candidates from 6,500 readers
of his blog (Justice 2004). However, requesting political donations is a rarely done
activity by most political bloggers. McKenna and Pole (2007) found that only 11 percent
of bloggers had asked their readers to donate money to a political party or candidate.
The political blogosphere as a whole is also far more likely to filter information,
than urge their readers to contact an official or attend a rally (McKenna and Pole 2007 ).
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Convention