Abstract
In the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, blogs came into their own as a political communications medium. For years blog champions had promoted the narrative of indefatigable bloggers sniffing out under-the radar stories and challenging mainstream media (MSM). However, they were not widely recognized as playing a central journalistic role in the political communications system until blogs fact-checked CBS News' memos regarding President Bush's National Guard Service.
But what of blog failures? Among multitudes of bloggers and torrents of posts, numerous relevant and engaging stories whipped online muckrakers into a frenzy without achieving commensurate prominence in mainstream media. This paper combines anecdotal observations with a content analysis of four leading political blogs during the last four months of the campaign, identifying stories that failed to crossover to mainstream media. Drawing on mass-media news theories such as Gamson's collective action frames and Bennett's concepts of indexing and media strata, I will suggest common attributes of these "blogflops."
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