First Monday, Volume 16, Number 3 - 7 March 2011

Adopting an interdisciplinary scope, this paper presents a review of research on blogs andblogging within the social sciences and the humanities. It maps out what kind of research hasbeen completed, how it has been performed and what gaps that might need to be filled in thisrelatively new area of research. More specifically, the paper will analyze all articles on blogsand blogging published until 2009 and indexed by the ISI Web of Knowledge.

ContentsIntroductionResearch procedureResultsSummarySuggestions for future research

IntroductionInterest in blogs and blogging has increased dramatically in recent years. Weblogs or blogscan be described as a form of personal, easy–to–manage Web sites with content presented inreverse chronological order (Schiano, et al., 2004). Bloggers are also frequently described asinfluential agenda setters. For instance, blogs have been found to have influence on mediacoverage of politics (Ashbee, 2003; Sweetser, et al., 2008; Wallsten, 2007) as well asfacilitating communication among individuals (Baker and Moore, 2008; Hodkinson, 2007) andorganizations (Kelleher and Miller, 2006; Sweetser and Metzgar, 2007). It follows from theseobservations that the blog as a form of mediated human expression and blogging as a humanactivity is of interest to academics from a variety of scientific disciplines. Although researchprojects interested in various aspects of blogs and blogging are on the rise, few articles havelooked at blog research in a cumulative manner. As far as we know, no major review ofmethodologies, research topics and disciplinary perspectives in blog research seems to havebeen undertaken.

According to Kuhn (1962), young research paradigms search for generally acknowledgedways of conducting research. What themes have been dominating in blog research through itsrather short period of existence? What kinds of research approaches have been applied?Posing and answering questions like these are important in order to reflect on the currentstate as well as future development of blog research. In line with this, Webster and Watson(2002) claim that literature reviews are important for solidifying and strengthening scientificfoundations.

Research reviews regarding Internet–related subjects have been undertaken in a variety ofscholarly contexts. Employing an interdisciplinary view, Rice (2005) analyzed research paperspresented at the 2003 and 2004 Association of Internet Researchers conferences, findingsimilar results regarding the subjects addressed at the two conferences. Focusing on Internetresearch within the field of communication studies, Kim and Weaver (2002) analyzed 561articles in 86 journals and books. They found that the most frequent research focus was lawand policy (22.5 percent of the articles), followed by uses and perception (18.9 percent) andeconomic (13.7 percent). Methods used were primarily non–quantitative (72.9 percent), andthe articles analyzed tended to focus on issues for the Internet itself and uses and users ofthe Internet, rather than looking at effects of usage or how the Internet might be improved.Research reviews such as the ones discussed here and the one presented in this paper offers“a powerful tool for synthesizing research and providing the big picture of an area” [1].

This paper presents a review of research on blogs and blogging within the social sciences andthe humanities. It attempts to map out what kind of research has been conducted, how it hasbeen performed and what gaps that might need to be filled. Specifically, the paper willanalyze all articles on blogs and blogging indexed by the ISI Web of Knowledge.

This article is organized as follows. After this introduction, the research procedure isdescribed. The guidelines for selecting and classifying the articles included in the study areexplained. Following that, the results of the research review are presented and summarized.Finally, the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are proposed.

Research procedureWhen outlining past research in a literature review, a number of choices have to be made,often beginning with questions regarding the selection of studies to be included in the review.The researcher must ask how a representative selection of studies can be secured. Twocommon ways of conducting research reviews might be labeled journal–centric and topic–centric approaches. The journal–centric approach takes its starting point from a selection ofacademic journals, often limited to a specific time period (Webster and Watson, 2002). Thisapproach is often feasible when the research to be reviewed is found in a limited number ofjournals. Since there are no established academic journals that focus exclusively on blogsand blogging. As will be showed in our review, such research can be found in many disciplinesand in a large number of journals. Consequently, the journal–centric approach was notdeemed appropriate for our review.

As noted earlier, research on blogs and blogging attracts interest from several traditionaldisciplines. In order to study research on blogs, this article adopts a topic–centric method ofselection, as inspired by Webster and Watson (2002) who assert that “A complete reviewcovers relevant literature on the topic and is not confined to one research methodology, oneset of journals, or one geographic region” [2]. In order to accomplish a wide selection ofpapers, the authors used journal databases that index articles of multiple journals. For thisstudy, the ISI Web of Science was employed, specifically its hosted databases SocialSciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). These twodatabases are highly regarded, indexing peer–reviewed articles from a total of 3,300 journalsof high quality (Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 2009; Social Sciences Citation Index, 2009).It may be argued that conference proceedings better represent the current development ofblog research. However, we argue that the most influential research articles are usuallypublished in high quality journals such as the ones indexed by the databases mentionedabove.

The search process was undertaken on 5 January 2009. Using the “advanced search” featureavailable on ISI Web of Science, SSCI and AHCI were searched using the keywords blog*,weblog* and web log* (trunctuated so as to find different usage of the basic word, such asblogs, bloggers, blogging, etc.). This indentified papers that focus on blogs but also those thatexamine blogs in relation with other media. As for temporal limits, all articles publishedbefore 1 January 2009, were considered for inclusion. In total, 311 articles were identified.These were then downloaded (except for the non–available articles, see below) for initialsorting and classification. After this initial sorting, it was decided to exclude 20 percent (N=63)of the articles from further analysis. The reasons for exclusions are summarized in Table 1and described below.

Table 1: Excluded and included articles.

N Percentage

Initial articles 311 100

Excluded articles 63 20

Of which: Not relevant 31 10

Not available 17 5

Non–scientific journal 10 3

Peripheral treatment 5 2

Included articles 248 80

Four reasons for exclusion emerged. The main reason was that an article was deemed as “notrelevant.” Articles in this group (N=31, 10 percent of total number of articles) usuallycontained part of the keyword (e.g., “log” when searching for “web log”) but were notoriented towards blogs or blogging. The “not available” category consisted of 17 articles (fivepercent) of the original 311 articles. These could not be accessed for one of two reasons.Either the journal where the article had been published was not available through theUniversity Library (as was the case with 15 of these articles), or the article was not available

due to technical problems (e.g., “404 error”). The authors undertook additional efforts tomake sure that these article were not available elsewhere. Searches were made looking forthe unavailable articles using the University library system as well as with Google’s Scholarservice. The third largest category of excluded articles were those published in what was notregarded as scholary journals (i.e., Forbes or Nation), consisting of a total of 10 articles(three percent). Five papers (two percent) of the initial 311 featured studies that treated theconcept of blogging peripherally or not at all. While these articles included keywords like“blogs” or “blogging” in their abstracts, they did not elaborate further on these. After theexclusion process, 248 out of 311 papers (80 percent) remained in the sample. These articleswere then analyzed according to a number of variables. This process is described below.

Theme

Scholarly interest in blogging can be expected to emanate from many different disciplines.This wide interest should also mirror itself in the themes addressed by the articles included inthe sample. Accordingly, articles were classified as belonging to a general “theme”. Sevendifferent themes iteratively emerged as the first author classified the articles: Business,Communication, Education, Library and information studies, Politics, Social medicine,Sociology and psychology, and Technology. Table 2 features examples of articles coded foreach theme.

Table 2: Examples of classification into themes.

Theme Title of article Journal Author/year

Business

“Blogging PR:An exploratoryanalysis ofpublic relationsweblogs”

PublicRelationsReview

(Xifra &Huertas,2008)

Communication

“Media use,socialstructure, andbelief in 9/11conspiracytheories”

Journalism &MassCommunicationQuarterly

(Stempel, etal., 2007)

Education

“Socialsoftware forlife–longlearning”

EducationalTechnology &Society

(Klamma, etal., 2007)

Library andinformationstudies

“The bloggersamong us” Library Journal

(Farkas,2007)

Politics

“Candidatecampaignblogs —Directlyreaching out tothe youthvote”

AmericanBehavioralScientist

(SweetserTrammell,2007)

Socialmedicine

“An AfricanAmericanweblogcommunity’sreading ofAIDS in blackAmerica”

Journal ofComputer–MediatedCommunication

(Kvasny &Igwe, 2008)

Sociology andpsychology

“Understandingintention tocontinuouslyshareinformation onweblogs”

InternetResearch

(Lu & Hsiao,2007)

Technology

“Weblogsuccess:Exploring therole oftechnology”

InternationalJournal ofHuman–ComputerStudies

(Du &Wagner,2006)

The “theme” variable was coded using a variety of information: looking at the scope of thejournals, authors’ academic affiliations and, foremost, keywords and abstracts. In mostcases, these sources of information pointed in the same direction relative to themeclassification. In some cases, however, there were discrepancies between the aforementioned

information sources. An example of this is the paper by Klamma, et al. (2007), where theauthors all are associated with an informatics department. However, the overridinginformation source of keywords and abstract led to classifying the article as belonging to thetheme of “Education”.

Phase

Scholars seem to agree that it is important to examine different research patterns in newtechnological settings, identifying what kind of work has been done and leading the way intonew directions for future research (Dominick and Wimmer, 2003; Morris and Ogan, 1996). Inorder to address the growth of different kinds of research over time, a model of phases inmedia development was employed. According to Wimmer and Dominick’s four–phase model,“mass media has evolved in definable steps, and similar patterns have been followed in eachmedium’s need for research” [3]. Their model has, among other applications, been used tostudy Internet research within a specific scientific community (Kim and Weaver, 2002). Thefour–phase model was deemed relevant for our study and is described below.

In the first phase, here labeled “issues for blogs and blogging”, research is focused on themedium itself, addressing questions such as what the medium is, how it works and how it issimilar to or different from already available media. For example, Bar–Ilan (2005) attemptedto characterize information management blogs while Riva (2002) tried to determine thecommunicative characteristics of various CMC services, such as blogs. After a period ofdevelopment, Wimmer and Dominick argue that the second phase, “Uses and users of blogs”,is geared towards research into uses and users of the new medium. Typical questions askedare: How is this medium being used? Who are the major users? Aside from more generalstudies focusing on the reasons for and everyday uses of blogging (Guadagno, et al., 2008;Huang, et al., 2007), blog usage has also been studied in a variety of specialized contexts, asshown in Table 2. The third phase, “Effects of blogs and blogging”, deals with the effectsassociated with the new medium — does employment of the medium change userperceptions? Does it change people’s everyday lives; the way organizations work, or does ithave more overarching societal effects? For example, the effects of blogs on the establishedmedia have been studied (Lowrey, 2006), as well as the social and psychological effects ofblog use (Baker and Moore, 2008; Cheshire and Antin, 2008). During the fourth and finalphase most research deals with how the new medium might be improved, either in its use orthrough some technical development. For example, studies have looked into how PR andmarketing practitioners might improve their blogging practices (Kalyanam, et al., 2007; Kent,2008).

Empirical — Non–empirical

The third step of the analysis was to determine whether or not the included papers werebased on empirical data or not. Empirical studies were defined as those articles that werebased on empirical, systematic data and/or observations, gathered by means of a specificmethodological approach (Chen and Hirschheim, 2004). Non–empirical articles are consideredto be “primarily based on ideas, frameworks and speculation rather than on systematicobservation” [4]. Chen and Hirschheim argue that “while non–empirical studies help todevelop concepts and build theory, empirical studies provide concrete evidence for testingtheories”. Following this, they suggest that as specific disciplines mature “one might expecttheory-testing to outweigh theory–building efforts” [5].

Quantitative — Qualitative — Mixed

The empirical articles were classified based on what kind of methods they employed.Quantitative research methodology “uses numerical analysis to illustrate the relationshipamong factors in the phenomenon studied” while qualitative methodology “emphasizes thedescription and understanding of the situation behind the factors” [6]. Moreover, mixedresearch methods can be preferable to shed light on different aspects of research phenomenaand allow the researcher to support their findings in more convincing ways (Yin, 2003). Theempirical articles were classified as employing quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods.Inspired by previous research reviews (e.g., Cooper, et al., 1994; Kim and Weaver, 2002),the specific method or methods used were also determined. This was done using an inductiveapproach as the analysis proceeded (inspired by Kim and Weaver, 2002).

Method — Non–method

In order to secure validity and reliability in scientific work, it is often necessary that theauthor provides a thorough description of the method or methods employed. Inspired byHrastinski and Keller (2007), the empirical papers were scrutinized for descriptions of howdata selection and analysis were undertaken. Typically, these descriptions appear underheadings such as Method or Data collection and analysis. The articles were classified as eithercontaining description of methods or not.

Level of analysis: Micro — Organizational — Macro

Following Layder (1993), social scientists often attempt to clarify their research approachesand limit their scope of study by positioning their work on a scale ranging from studies on amicro level (e.g., specific individuals) to a macro level (e.g., countries). Examples studies onthe micro level include Guadagno, et al. (2008), who looked at personality traits of bloggers,and Kim and Chung (2007), who studied blogging by cancer patients. Studies regarding onlinepolitical debate and its consequences (Harris, 2008; Kerbel and Bloom, 2005) were classified

as adopting a macro level of analysis. Between micro and macro, an intermediate level ofanalysis can be identified, which we labeled the organizational level of study. This categoryincluded studies conducted in companies, educational institutions, social groups or similar. Forexample, a study on blogging for educational purposes was placed at the organizational level(Duda and Garrett, 2008).

Classification was guided by looking at the units of analysis used, the aim of the paper andwhat kind of conclusions were drawn.

Directly — Indirectly

Blogs might be the focus of a research endeavor, creating possibilities for a more thoroughanalysis of the phenomenon. They can also be studied in combination with other Internet–related artifacts (such as Web sites, discussion boards or chat rooms). This last process of“lumping together” various IT artifacts and studying them as one construct places the blogs,Web sites and other related digital content in a “black box”, rendering them indistinguishablefrom each other (Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001). On the other hand, it can be argued thatthere is a need to understand benefits and disadvantages of different combinations ofInternet–related artifacts, because a medium is commonly used simultaneously with othermedia (Cameron and Webster, 2005). To assess this, a variable was constructed thatdetermines whether blogs or bloggers were the main focus of the study, or if blogs orbloggers were studied together with other IT artifacts or users.

Reliability

In order to test reliability, the first author performed an initial classification of 248 articles.After that, the second author classified a random sample of 20 percent of the articles. Thetwo classification sets were compared using Holsti’s coefficient (Holsti, 1969), resulting in aagreement figure of 0.88, which is generally regarded as a high level of intercoder reliability.

ResultsThe results of the review are presented in the following order. First, we look at the overallgrowth of blog research as well as year–by–year development of different research themes.After that, we assess how blog research has grown with regards to empirical and non–empirical studies. The issue of what methods have been applied and if they are explicitlydescribed, or not, comes next. Finally, annual trends are treated specifically looking at thelevel of analysis in various studies, especially if blogs were studied in isolation or incombination with other IT phenomena.

Growth of blog research

Research into blogs and blogging has increased dramatically in recent years (see Figure 1).Starting in 2002 with only two published articles, many papers (N=101, 40.7 percent) werepublished in 2008. Academic interest in blogs and blogging is very much on the rise.

Figure 1: Articles published by year (percentage).

Table 3 shows articles published by year and theme, as well as the total number of articlespublished within a specific theme during 2002–2008. Looking at Table 3 from a year–by–yearperspective, the “early movers” of blog research seem to have been researchers interestedin sociology, politics, media– or business–related themes. Moving to 2004 we see that blogresearch appear to broaden, including “library and information studies” as well as articles inthemes represented earlier. In 2005 we see all but one field (“social medicine”) represented.Compared with 2004, more than four times as many articles on blogs and blogging werepublished during 2005. The “politics” and “sociology and psychology”” categories were thelargest during 2005, accounting for 26.9 percent (N=7) and 23.1 percent (N=6) of the articlesrespectively. In 2006, all themes are represented. The largest category is “politics”,containing 25.8 percent (N=8). The final two years in the study are characterized bycontinued growth. Although research interests on blogs and blogging seem to have shiftedsomewhat, the number of articles published appear to be on the rise, as indicated above inFigure 1 and below in Table 3.

Table 3: Articles published by year and theme; Number (N) andpercentage (%).

Year published

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total

Business 0 (0) 3(60)

1(16.7)

4(15.4)

5(16.1)

12(16.9)

10(10.1)

35(14.6)

Communication 1(50)

1(20)

2(33.3)

3(11.5)

5(16.1)

10(14.1)

11(11.1)

33(13.8)

Education 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1(3.8)

2(6.5)

9(12.7)

13(13.1)

25(10.4)

Library andInformationstudies

0 (0) 0 (0)1

(16.7)4

(15.4)3

(9.7)12

(16.9)11

(11.1)31

(12.9)

Politics 0 (0) 1(20)

0 (0) 7(26.9)

8(25.8)

3(4.2)

15(15.2)

34(14.2)

Social medicine 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1(3.2)

5 (7) 7(7.1)

13(5.4)

Sociology andpsychology

1(50)

0 (0) 2(33.3)

6(23.1)

4(12.9)

13(18.3)

25(25.3)

13(5.4)

Technology 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1(3.8)

3(9.7)

7(9.9)

7(7.1)

18(7.5)

Total 2(100)

5(100)

6(100)

26(100)

31(100)

71(100)

99(100)

240(100)

Table 3 also displays the total number of articles by theme. The largest theme to emerge is“sociology and psychology” (N=51, 21.3 percent), covering such themes as reasons forindividuals to blog (Miura and Yamashita, 2007) or the psychological effect of sharingpersonal information online (Baker and Moore, 2008). The theme of “business” is the runner–up (N=35, 14.6 percent), mostly containing studies on blog use in various business—relatedsettings. The third most popular theme is “politics”, accounting for 14.2 percent of the articles(N=34). Articles here deal with blog usage by political candidates (Albrecht, et al., 2007) orwith political discussion in the blogosphere. The fourth most recurring theme is“communication” (N=33, 13.8 percent). This theme mainly deals with the influence of blogsand blogging on media professionals (Matheson, 2004). The theme of “library and informationstudies” is at fifth place (N= 31, 12.9 percent), while the sixth most popular theme is“education” (N=25, 10.4 percent). The two themes of “technology” (N=18, 7.5 percent) and“social medicine” (N=13, 5.4 percent) round off Table 3, at seventh and eight place. Whilepapers in the “technology” category tends to have more practical aims, such as presentingnew ways of extracting content from blogs (Hidaka and Nakajima, 2007), the category of“social medicine” focus on the use of blogging by individuals afflicted by different illnesses,such as Chung and Kim’s (2008) study on blogging cancer patients or Clarke and vanAmerom’s (2008) study on bloggers with Asperger’s syndrome.

Phases of research

Figure 2: Distribution of phases of research by year (percentage).

The Wimmer and Dominick model was employed as described earlier in this paper. Their firstphase of “issues for blogs and blogging” is indeed the first one to emerge in Figure 2. Duringthe first two years of analysis, this particular phase was the only emergent one. In total, 41articles (16.8 percent) were classified as belonging to this first phase. Moving on, we see thatthe second phase (“uses and users of blogs”) is the largest by far. As indicated in Table 2,over half of the articles analyzed have focused on researching various aspects of use anddifferent users in relation to the blogging phenomenon. This result seems well in line with Kimand Weaver’s (2002) study, which found this second phase to be largest, accounting for 45percent of the studied material. Much like the articles in phase 2, studies on the “effects ofblogs and blogging” also first emanated in 2004. After this first year, however, phase 3 isrepresented by a considerably smaller amount of articles than its predecessor. Nonetheless, itappears to be the second most popular phase during 2006–2008. Thus, it seems like this typeof effects–oriented research seems to be on the rise. In total, 48 articles (19.7 percent) wereclassified as belonging to phase 3. During the fourth and final phase, research focus on “howblogs and blogging practices might be improved”. Starting in 2004, this phase also appears tobe on the rise — although not so much so as the third phase. With 20 articles (8.2 percent),the fourth phase is the smallest one in our study. This result that again mirror Kim andWeaver’s (2002) study, where the fourth phase was found to be the smallest with 11 percentof the studied articles.

The model by Wimmer and Dominick “is not intended to suggest that the research phases arelinear” [7], meaning that the phases will probably not follow conveniently after one another.Although a sequential trend can be discerned in Figure 2, tendencies for the phases to overlapare visible. Indeed, research can be expected to be “conducted simultaneously in all fourphases” [8].

Empirical — Non–empirical

A majority of the articles were based on empirical data (N=166, 66.9 percent). Figure 3reveals that although the majority of the articles are empirical, many of the early studieswere non–empirical. The first empirical article appeared in 2004. Following this year andonwards, we see a major rise of articles published, empirical as well as non–empirical.

Figure 3: Growth of empirical and non–empirical articles by year (percentage).

Methodology

Focusing on the articles based on empirical data, we look at what kind of methodology hasbeen employed in these studies, and whether or not the methods used have been clearlydescribed for the reader (see Table 4).

Table 4: Empirical articles classified according tomethod and description of method; Number (N)

and percentage (%).

Methoddescribed

Method notdescribed

Total

Quantitative(62 percent ofclassified studies)

100 (97.1) 3 (2.9)103

(100)

Qualitative(28.3 percent ofclassified studies)

25 (53.2) 22 (46.8)47

(100)

Mixed(9.7 percent ofclassified studies)

15 (93.8) 1 (6.3)16

(100)

Total 140 (84.3) 26 (15.7) 166(100)

A total of 166 articles were classified. Focusing first on the far right column Table 4, we cansee that the majority of these articles employed quantitative methods. Furthermore, almostall of the articles (N=100, 97.1 percent) using quantitative methods described the usage ofthe methods explicitly. As for qualitative studies, they accounted for almost 30 percent of thearticles based on empirical data (N=47, 28.3 percent). A little more than half (N=24, 53.2percent) of the qualitative studies did include a description of the method used. Although itcan be argued that qualitative researchers describe their methods in different ways thanquantitative researchers, the need to explicitly outline the methods employed should beevident to all scholars, regardless of methodological preferences. Looking at the lastcategory, we see that a total of 16 studies (or 9.7 percent) employed mixed methodology.The dominance of quantitative studies here can be contrasted to the results of Kim andWeaver (2002), who found that most (72.9 percent) Internet–related research in their studyemployed “non–quantitative” or qualitative methods.

A detailed account of the methods used can be found in Table 5. Quantitative methods wereused in 119 of the reviewed papers, consisting of 103 quantitative papers and 16 papersusing mixed methods. Various forms of content analysis proved to be most frequently used(N=41, 34.5 percent). For example, in her study of youth–oriented campaign posts on theofficial major party candidate Web sites during the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, SweetserTrammell (2007) found that only eight percent of the posts explicitly targeted a youthaudience. Almost as popular as content analysis, surveys were used in 38 articles (31,9percent). Taking an interest in how bloggers themselves view blogs compared to moretraditional sources of news, Johnson and Kaye (2004) used an online survey directed towardsbloggers and found that blog users tended to judge blogs as more credible than traditionalsources. The third most popular quantitative approach was quantitative experiments with 21instances (17.6 percent). For instance, Kelleher and Miller (2006) studied online publicrelations and used an experimental research design. They found that blogs tended to beviewed by their respondents as a more “conversational” means of communication thanregular Web pages, and that blogs therefore might provide an interesting opportunity fororganizations upholding an online presence.

Table 5: Detailed analysis of method employed.Method employed Number Percentage

Quantitative methods 119 100

Content analysis 41 34.5

Survey 38 31.9

Experiment 21 17.6

Network analysis 8 6.7

Other quantitativemethod

5 4.2

Empirical secondarydata analysis

4 3.4

Multiple quantitativemethods

2 1.7

Qualitative methods 63 100

Textual analysis 20 31.7

Interview 13 22.2

Discourse analysis 12 19

Observation 8 12.7

Other qualitativemethod

7 11.1

Multiple qualitativemethods

2 3.2

A total of 63 instances of qualitative methods were found, including 47 qualitative papers and16 papers using mixed methods. The most popular qualitative method was various forms oftextual analysis (N=20, 31.7 percent) used on, for example personal blogs (van Doorn, et al.,2007; Williams and Merten, 2008) or on blogs with political content (Auty, 2005; Hargittai, etal., 2008). Interviews were used in 14 studies (22.2 percent), while the third most popularqualitative method was discourse analysis, used in 12 studies (19 percent).

Level of analysis

Both empirical and non–empirical articles were classified as conducting analysis on either amicro (personal), organizational or macro (societal) level. As can be seen in Figure 4, thelevels of analysis have been relatively similar over the years. In total, 67 (27.3 percent) ofthe articles were classified as micro level, 94 (38.4 percent) as organizational level and 84(34.3 percent) as macro level.

Figure 4: Level of analysis of articles by year (percentage).

Directly — Indirectly

A little more than half (N=143, 57.7 percent) of the articles in the sample studied blogsdirectly, separating them from other similar Internet–related artifacts. The remainder ofarticles (N=105, 42.3 percent) employed a wider selection of units of analysis, studying blogsin combination with similar Internet phenomena. Figure 5 shows the year-by-year distributionof these data.

Figure 5: Blogs studied directly or indirectly by year (percentage).

The tendency to use blogs as the sole unit of analysis was very common in 2004. As thenumber of articles increase throughout the studied period, there has been a leveling of directand indirect studies, indicating that researchers found a need to study blogs and their usersboth directly and indirectly. Leading the way into future studies, the results for 2008 show aslight dominance of direct studies.

SummaryThis study has provided an overview of blog research within the social sciences andhumanities. Reviewing 248 articles indexed by ISI Web of Science that have been publishedbetween 2002 and 2008, the main results of the study can be summarized as follows.

1. Growth of blog research. Blog research has expanded considerably during theexamined period. The bulk of research was published during 2007 and 2008. Duringthese two years, 70 percent (N=175) of the total number of articles were published.

2. Growth of themes. Authors interested in sociology, politics, media– or business–relatedissues were the earliest to publish blog–related papers. The three largest themesduring the entire period were “sociology and psychology” (N=51, 21.3 percent),“business” (N=35, 14.6 percent) and “politics” (N=34, 14.2 percent).

3. Phases of research. Even though the four phases overlapped, as was expected, atrend could be discerned where they tended to rise consecutively. The most popular

phase was the second one, containing research dealing with “uses and users of blogs”.

4. Empirical — Non–empirical. During 2002 and 2003, only non–empirical articles werepublished. From 2004 and onwards, the majority of articles published were empirical.In total, 166 articles (66.9 percent) were based on empirical data and 82 articles (33.1percent) were classified as non–empirical.

5. Methodology. Of the empirical articles, a majority (N=103, 62 percent) utilizedquantitative methods. 47 articles, or nearly one third (28.3 percent) employedquantitative methodology. Nearly all (N=100, 97.1 percent) of the quantitative studiesprovided an explicit description of methodology. As for qualitative studies, about halfof the articles (N=25, 53.2 percent) provided such a description. The most popularquantitative methods used were content analysis, surveys and experiments. The mostpopular qualitative methods used were textual analysis, interviews and discourseanalysis.

6. Level of analysis. About a third (N=67, 27.3 percent) of the articles were classified asperforming analysis on a personal or micro level, 94 (38.4 percent) were deemed asaimed at organizational levels and 84 (34.3 percent) articles were classified as macroor societal level. On a year–by–year basis, no clear trends regarding the level ofanalysis variable could be found.

7. Directly — Indirectly. The tendency to study blogs in isolation was relatively high inpublications from 2004 (N=5, 83.3 percent). After that, the percentages of directstudies have decreased and indirect studies have increased. In 2008, we see a slightincrease of direct studies. Overall, a little more than half (N=143, 57.7 percent) of thearticles studied blogs directly, whereas 105 articles (42.3 percent) chose a wider scopeof units of analysis.

In sum, a typical blog research article is a sociological or psychological, empirical study thatuse and carefully describe a quantitative method. It is aimed at the organizational level ofstudy and focuses on blogs or bloggers as the sole units of analysis. By drawing on ourfindings, we now move on to suggest future research challenges for scholars interested inconducting blog research. We suggest that scholars use the findings presented here to reflecton current blog research and how it may be further developed.

Suggestions for future researchThe aim of this study has been to show what kind of research has been undertaken involvingblogs and bloggers, thereby uncovering “gaps” that could be addressed in future research.Below, we suggest a number of challenges for the future of blog research. These suggestionscan be used by scholars in need of an understanding of recent research or in the process ofplanning future studies.

Research is needed that build theory

As has been shown earlier, research on blogs have mainly been undertaken using empiricaldata. Although empirical articles are important to help build theory (Claver, et al., 2000;Weick, 1995), it should be stressed that for a scientific field to grow, theory–building papersthat integrate and synthesize previous findings need to be produced (Webster and Watson,2002). Perhaps one explanation regarding the dominance of empirical articles might be thatmany different academic disciplines have taken an interest in blogging, adopting differenttheoretical viewpoints on this new phenomenon. Theoretical growth might be associated withdisciplinary identity (Weber, 2003) but it might also be fruitful to suffice with a view of blogresearch as a multi–disciplinary theme, stirring up interest across the more traditionalacademic subjects (Keen, 1980). As shown through the analysis of phases of research, overhalf (N=135, 55.3 percent) of the research included in this review dealt with uses and users ofblogs (phase 2 in the model employed above). The cumulative body of work dealing withthese matters suggests that it might be time to move beyond the “interim struggles” oftheorizing (Weick, 1995) and attempt to formulate theories of blog usage. With this in mind, itappears as though more research is needed that addresses questions related to the otherthree phases (1, 3 and 4) in the model. Although it might be reasonable to suggest that futureresearch projects should focus on these phases (perhaps primarily the fourth, last and leastrepresented one: N=20, 8.2 percent), it is important not to forget the research questionsmost strongly associated with earlier and more popular research phases. Undertakingresearch projects emanating from all four phases might lead to an even deeperunderstanding regarding how new phenomena relates to otherwise well–researched forms oftechnology or media.

Research is needed that uses reliable and varied methods

Hookway [9] suggested that even though Internet–related research has mostly employedquantitative methodologies, qualitative studies appears to be on the rise. If this is true when itcomes to research specifically interested in blogs, researchers must be careful in describingtheir methodologies. Looking at the empirical articles in the study, a majority of them indeed

employed various quantitative methods. Of these studies, almost all provided an explicitdescription of the method chosen, i.e., how data had been collected and analyzed. As for thequalitative studies, slightly more than half provided such a description. The need for clear andconcise descriptions of methodology in scientific work can probably not be stressed enough(Kirk and Miller, 1986). In the end, this becomes a problem of reliability of research. If ascientist, regardless of chosen method, does not provide the readers with an account of theresearch process, it becomes difficult for fellow scholars to assess the quality of the researchprocess. The different perspectives offered by qualitative and quantitative research can helpenrich research and provide different forms of insight. More qualitative research into blogsand blogging is needed — and this research needs to provide descriptions of the methodsapplied. The distinction between quantitative and qualitative methods can at times seemarbitrary and stale. Regardless of what label one chooses for various methodologicalapproaches, the need for research methods to be varied is important. Employing mixedmethods can help researchers cross–validate their findings through triangulation, therebyhopefully reaching more convincing conclusions (Yin, 2003). In this study, we found that someresearch methods were more frequently used than others. Researchers interested in blogsand blogging should perhaps consider if one of the less frequently used methods can be ofuse to them in their research endeavors, which might provide new perspectives on thepractice of blogging. Of course, this does not mean that popular methods such as surveys orinterviews should be abandoned.

Research is needed that studies blogs directly and indirectly

As evident from the earlier presentation, a slight majority of studies chose blogs and bloggersas their units of analysis and did not include similar technologies and the use of thesetechnologies. The focus on blogs can perhaps be seen as both beneficial and somewhatprecarious for the development of research into blogs and blogging. On the one hand, thiskind of analytical isolation might help researchers probe deeper into specific aspects in orderto help us understand the particularities of blogs and blog usage. On the other hand, studyingmixed media approaches might gives us a broader understanding of how the blog artifact isused in relation with other artifacts. As a little than half of the articles in this study haveshown, blogs are often studied in conjunction with other technologies. This “indirect” way ofstudying phenomena might provide researchers with insight into differences between thevarious units, thereby enabling comparative studies. It seems that this “blackboxing”(Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001) of blogs can both hinder and help research to move further.While the popularity of direct studies in 2004 might be explained with the novelty of blogs, thecause for the rising tendency of direct studies in 2008 is not easily explained. Both rationalesare important starting points for future research, as the combination can give us both abroader and a deeper understanding of blogs and blogging.

Research is needed in small as well as new themes

The “theme”” variable used in this study helped us classify the articles, iteratively creatingcategories as described earlier. We could clearly see how certain themes had been morepopular than others. Explaining why some themes are more popular and some less popular isbeyond the scope of this study. However, the authors would like to suggest that as researchinto blogs and blogging move further, contributions from many complementing fields areneeded. For example, research in the theme of “technology”” might help improve technicalaspects of blogging services. Looking further into the theme of “social medicine” might helpus understand how blogging can be useful in health care situations. Thus, a broad andinclusive focus, comprising many complementing themes, will help us gain a deeperunderstanding of blogs and blogging. A future challenge is to identify new and innovativethemes for blog research, as it can be expected that the interest in various applications ofblogs and blogging will continue to increase in the coming years.

About the authorsAnders Olof Larsson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Informatics and Media atUppsala University.Web: http://www.andersoloflarsson.se/E–mail: anders [dot] larsson [at] im [dot] uu [dot] se.

Stefan Hrastinski is Associate Professor (docent) of Media Technology at KTH Royal Instituteof Technology and Uppsala University.Web: http://hrastinski.posterous.com/E–mail: stefanhr [at] kth [dot] se.

Notes1. Dominick and Wimmer, 2003, p. 6.

2. Webster and Watson, 2002, pp. xv–xvi.

3. Wimmer and Dominick, 2006, p. 7.

4. Alavi and Carlson, 1992, p. 48.

5. Chen and Hirschheim, 2004, p. 205.

6. Chen and Hirschheim, 2004, p. 204.

7. Wimmer and Dominick, 2006, p. 8.

8. Ibid.

9. Hookway, 2008, p. 92.

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Editorial historyReceived 5 August 2010; revised 23 November 2010; accepted 20 February 2011.

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