Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 7-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

“Katrina Bloggers Activate!”: The Long‐Term Effects of Digital Media on Civic Participation

“Katrina Bloggers Activate!”: The Long‐Term Effects of Digital Media on Civic Participation There is a lively debate on the relationship between digital media and civic participation. Some scholars argue that digital media adversely affect civic participation, others that the effect of digital media on civic participation is negligible, and still others claim that digital media strengthens civic participation. Yet, most of this research is based on cross‐sectional methodologies, treats digital media as a uniform entity, and overlooks new civic formations that better resonate with current social and technological environments. We address these criticisms with a retrospective case study of blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Through in‐depth interviews, supplemental survey data, analysis of blog posts, and field notes, we show how a number of New Orleans’ residents used blogs to organize and take part in a variety of civic actions in the months and years after hurricane Katrina. We discuss the implications of these findings for current debates on the relationship between digital media and civic participation. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Sociological Inquiry Wiley

“Katrina Bloggers Activate!”: The Long‐Term Effects of Digital Media on Civic Participation

Ostertag, Stephen F.; Ortiz, David G.
Sociological Inquiry , Volume 85 (1) – Feb 1, 2015
Download PDF
27 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/katrina-bloggers-activate-the-long-term-effects-of-digital-media-on-u0fEN44wG1

References (57)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2015 Alpha Kappa Delta: The International Sociology Honor Society
ISSN
0038-0245
eISSN
1475-682X
DOI
10.1111/soin.12060
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

There is a lively debate on the relationship between digital media and civic participation. Some scholars argue that digital media adversely affect civic participation, others that the effect of digital media on civic participation is negligible, and still others claim that digital media strengthens civic participation. Yet, most of this research is based on cross‐sectional methodologies, treats digital media as a uniform entity, and overlooks new civic formations that better resonate with current social and technological environments. We address these criticisms with a retrospective case study of blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Through in‐depth interviews, supplemental survey data, analysis of blog posts, and field notes, we show how a number of New Orleans’ residents used blogs to organize and take part in a variety of civic actions in the months and years after hurricane Katrina. We discuss the implications of these findings for current debates on the relationship between digital media and civic participation.

Journal

Sociological Inquiry – Wiley

Published: Feb 1, 2015

There are no references for this article.