Watching the watchdog: bloggers as the fifth estate

Abstract

Introduction -- Bloggers as media critics -- Accuracy -- Fact-checking descriptions -- Fidelity of quotations -- Authenticity of documents -- Interpretations of statistics or scientific studies -- Trustworthiness of memes -- Framing -- Disputing the frame -- Reframing a set of facts -- Contextualizing -- Agenda-setting and gatekeeping -- Questioning the news judgment -- Setting an alternative agenda -- Journalistic practices -- Newsgathering -- Writing and editing -- Error correction -- The economics of blogs -- Technological facilitation -- Cost/benefit ratio -- The value chain -- The media marketplace as an ecosystem : symbiosis -- Blogs as alternative media -- Reporting -- Essays -- The blogosphere and the public sphere -- The ideal speech situation -- The spiral of silence -- The quantity question -- The quality question -- Competence -- Cocooning -- Bias -- Quantity and quality, both