by Ellyssa Kroski

With the genesis of Web 2.0, we find ourselves in the age of the amateur; a time when everyone has a voice, not just those in powerful positions. Through the blogosphere, Internet users participate in the read-write Web providing valuable sources for news, opinion and miscellany. A rapidly growing phenomenon, the number of weblogs hurtled over 27.2 million as of February 2006 according to Technorati, whose studies showed that the size of the blogosphere doubles every five and a half months. This new style of journalism that is unabashedly subjective and endearingly personal represents a global conversation that is connected through its community of readers. (11)

Although blogging is one of the major ways that users are communicating on the Web today, it is not without its limitations or its critics. The authority of blogs and their value as an information source has been called into question by professional journalists, librarians, scholars, and many others. In a generation when the masses speak for themselves, whose voice should you listen to?

Concerns
With the lack of barriers to entry inherent in traditional publishing such as cost and the editorial board, blogs have amateurized the publishing industry. Today anyone can start a blog, and therein lies the quandary of how to differentiate between the valuable and the vanity press. There have been many concerns indicated with respect to blogs as authoritative sources, however, as readily as such shortcomings are identified, supporters of the organic medium have provided responses.

Blogs lack filters. One of the major points of contention that critics raise about blogging is that it lacks information filters. In other words, it is missing the editorial process; the fact checker correcting inaccurate information, the copy editor tweaking grammar, and the editor determining objectivity and relevance. To some, the blogosphere seems a wilderness of unrestrained writers free from the peer review or refereeing process.

Supporters respond that there are indeed quality control mechanisms in the blogosphere. Although more informal, the peer review system is made up of other bloggers with related interests and expertise, as well as blog readers. Comments made on individual posts reflect the attitudes and thoughts of readers and will often point out errors and alternative opinions. Trackbacks reflect how often and by whom a particular post has been cited externally. Search engines such as Technorati will discover a blog’s rank in the blogosphere, how many websites link to it and what others are saying about it. Unlike in the publishing industry where the filtering takes place before a work is published, in the blogosphere, the filtering occurs after publication. (22)

Blogs lack authority. Authority resides in the identity of the author, and in the case of print publications, with the publisher. This combination of individual and institutional authority lend the reader valuable clues as to the credibility of the source material. In the case of blogs, the publisher is out of the equation. This makes the task of establishing an author’s individual authority all the more problematic. In a virtual environment, where anyone can create a blog, and many do so anonymously, detractors claim that it is difficult if not impossible to verify authority.

Many bloggers are forthcoming about their identities and credentials, although in the Web environment, this is not always enough. Analogous with other Web 2.0 phenomenon, in the blogosphere, the collective intelligence decides what is valuable. Web 2.0 is inclusive; everyone has a chance to put something out there, but not everything will be widely read. Blogs become popular and are endorsed through blogrolls. If bloggers write compelling content, their individual posts are referenced through permalinks, the number of which serves as a good indicator of influence. The combination of these measures of popularity and influence can be invaluable in determining authority. (11) Additionally, while bloggers may lack institutional authority in the traditional sense, there are now many whose blogs are affiliated with mainstream media.

Bloggers are amateurs. Unlike professional journalists, bloggers are not obligated to adhere to a set of ethical standards with regard to their writing. Likewise, they are not compelled by the custom of objectivity in their prose, as are trained reporters. This lack of professional values and training is considered a major shortcoming by many in the mainstream media.

Blog enthusiasts claim that the amateur nature of blogging is not a limitation, but rather an advantage. Free from corporate considerations, a blogger may discuss issues that the mainstream media cannot touch, including scandals such as Rathergate, Easongate, and Gannongate. Bloggers make no pretense about the opinionated nature of their writing and are respected by supporters for their candor. Additionally, because they exist independently from the professional publication cycle, blogs boast a currency and immediacy that cannot be rivaled by traditional media.

Who do we trust?
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, the most trusted spokespersons in 2005 were found to be those who were independent of corporate influence. Nearly half of the 1,500 opinion leaders who responded felt that “a person like yourself” was the most trusted.

Trust is becoming increasingly decentralized. We are moving away from the metaphorical “mountain” of trust where one would customarily seek advice from an expert, and are instead forming circles of trust made up of our friends, colleagues, and trusted sources. Using the Yahoo! MyWeb 2.0 search engine as well as Jookster and others, users can search and receive only those results which are from sources that have been approved by their connections.

According to Pew studies in 2004, almost 2 out of 5 Americans believed very little or none of what they watched on television news and almost half felt the same about the printed newspaper. (15) As trust in traditional authorities wanes, so increases peer reliance. The Internet is now the third most popular source to be looked to first for information, following television and newspapers. (27)

As of January 2005, blog readership comprised 27% of the online population, a 58% jump from the previous year. (28) A 2003 survey of 4,000 weblog users found that almost three-quarters of respondents rated blogs as moderately to very credible, while less than half felt the same way about online newspapers. Although these users deemed blogs to be credible sources, they had few misconceptions about their objectivity; less than 40% judged them to be fair. (10)

How do we judge?
Is there a new criteria for judging authority and credibility in today’s online environment? One that could evaluate the quality of information written by someone who is; forthright about their biases, adds analysis to news stories, is independent of corporate ties, and is “a person like myself”?

Librarians acknowledge numerous measures for evaluating print and online sources which prove very useful when judging blogs, excepting of course, the criteria of objectivity which would be irrelevant. By utilizing these tried and true methods and expanding upon them, we could offer a set of evaluation criterion tailored for the blogosphere.

Identity of the Author – Seek out the identity and credentials of the author. Be wary of anonymous bloggers.
Accuracy – Is the information presented accurate?
Currency – Is the blog up-to-date or outdated?
Endorsements – Use sites such as Technorati and Google Blog Search to see what people are saying about a particular blog or article. Technorati recently added an “authority” slider to their search feature which allows users to narrow their results based on level of authority. They base their authority measures on how many sites link back to a particular blog.
Blogrolls - Note if “authoritative” blogs are endorsing it in their blogroll to gage its popularity.
Permalinks – Discover how many blogs link back to it using permalinks to judge its sphere of influence.
Print Citations – Notice if the mainstream media has referenced the blog in print.
Cited Sources– Have they cited, or linked to the original source of the news?
Recommendations – Is this a source recommended by your circle of trust?
Content Analysis - Investigate the body of work on a blog, not just the posting you’re interested in.

What Can We Do?
Librarians, subject experts, and information professionals can provide a great service to users by using their unique expertise to evaluate and recommend authoritative blogs. Reading lists can be created in the form of OPML files which consist of a list of RSS feeds corresponding to the endorsed blogs. When a user subscribes to the reading list through their news aggregator, such as NewsRiver, they will be automatically subscribed to all of the blogs on the list. Future additions or deletions from the list by the expert are automatically updated for the user. Additionally, librarians and others can offer to share their knowledge and evaluative skills by sharing their recommendations and tags on sites such as Yahoo!’s My Web 2.0.

Summary
In this era of Web 2.0, we are looking to each other for news, recommendations, and advice instead of the proverbial “expert”. It is this proletarian nature of the blog that lends itself to the current atmosphere of trust in one’s peers. We want to be involved; we want to write our own story. Blogs are opinionated, personal, amateur, and sometimes anonymous, but may still serve as a valuable research resource. As with any new publishing outlet, measures of value need to be customized in order to judge information quality and recommendation methods should be adapted to disseminate it.

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