The AES has an interesting graph which shows trending on how people consumed political information during elections. Unfortunately the trend ends at 2004, however, the internet was already rivaling talkback radio, newspapers and radio for media consumption patterns.
I am sure that the ‘internet’ includes mainstream media sites such as the SMH, Australian and so forth as well as independent media and blogs. It would be interesting to see those same figures for 2007 as well as a breakdown of mass media websites, independent media (a-la crikey) and citizen political sites (such as blogs).
It is interesting to see the growth of the Internet as a news source, but I think if you shook out the figures just for blogs all you’d identify is the percentage of people who enjoy having their existing beliefs reinforced.
This can’t be said for the other forms of media because even at their worst there is some presentation of each side.
Dave, Talkback radio is purely an echo chamber. I dont think that is a fair summation of blogs. They have their meatchuckers too, but there is more variety on the internet.