LIS blog comments: An exploratory analysis

Blogging, though a relatively new phenomenon, has gained vast popularity, and blogs have become a central feature and an essential information channel in the Web 2.0 information world. The current research seeks to expand our understanding, and examine comments written by readers of LIS blogs. The researcher examined the comments assigned to the posts and the analysis was conducted in two phases: (1) statistical descriptive analysis and (2) content analysis. The primary research questions are: What type of language do comment writers use? What type of information is found in the comments? What is the content of the comments? Research findings indicate that the majority of comments were written in a personal style. Moreover, the research findings reflect the readers' moderate participation and low activity in the creation and dynamics of these blogs. However, comment writers deal with substantive issues which reflect their professional as well as their personal interests. Thus, comments' writers did not express only courtesy comments but they took advantage of the platform and expressed personal, impressive, advisory, as well as reflective comments. The research findings are relevant for librarians and information scientists as they cause them to better understand and explore the LIS blogosphere.