Should communications departments remain in traditional structures? If communications departments change structure, what should a web-centric alignment look like?
(PDF) The Power and Politics of Blogs, Daniel W. Drezner (University of Chicago), Henry Farrell (George Washington University), July 2004 (paper presented at the 2004 American Political Science Association)
"Weblogs occupy an increasingly important place in American politics. Their influence presents a puzzle: given the disparity in resources and organization vis-à-vis other actors, how can a collection of decentralized, nonprofit, contrarian, and discordant websites exercise any influence over political and policy outputs? This paper answers that question by focusing on two important aspects of the "blogosphere": the distribution of readers across the array of blogs, and the interactions between significant blogs and traditional media outlets. Under specific circumstances – when key weblogs focus on a new or neglected issue – blogs can socially construct an agenda or interpretive frame that acts as a focal point for mainstream media, shaping and constraining the larger political debate."
