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The Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) provides its publications to contribute toward expanding the body of knowledge about 

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 tional force multiplier in conflict against state adversaries

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Joint Special Operations University

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JSOU Senior Fellow


JSOU Report 06-5

The JSOU Press

Hurlburt Field, Florida

2006

Blogs and

Military Information

Strategy

James Kinniburgh

Dorothy Denning
Comments about this publication are invited and should be forwarded 

to Director, Strategic Studies Department, Joint Special Operations 

University, 357 Tully Street, Alison Building, Hurlburt Field, Florida 

32544. Copies of this publication may be obtained by calling JSOU at 

850-884-2763; FAX 850-884-4732. 

*******

The Strategic Studies Department, JSOU is currently accepting written 

works relevant to special operations for potential publication. For more 

information please contact Mr. Jim Anderson, JSOU Director of Research, 

at 850-884-1569, DSN 579-1569, james.d.anderson@hurlburt.af.mil. 

Thank you for your interest in the JSOU Press. 

*******

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

ISBN 1-933749-14-8
The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of 

the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy 

or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, 

USSOCOM, or the Joint Special Operations University.
Previous Publications of the JSOU Press

2004–2005 JSOU/NDIA Essays, April 2005

Special Operations Forces Reference Manual, June 2005

Russian Special Forces, August 2005

Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. 

The Evolving Requirements of the 

Canadian Special Operations Forces, September 2005

J. Paul de B. Taillon

Operationalizing COIN, September 2005

Joseph D. Celeski

Theoretical Perspectives of 

Terrorist Enemies as Networks, October 2005

Robert G. Spulak, Jr. and Jessica Glicken Turnley

Logistic Support and Insurgency, October 2005

Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. 

Dividing Our Enemies, November 2005

Thomas H. Henriksen

The War on Terrorism, December 2005

James A. Bates

Coast Guard SOF, February 2006

Gary R. Bowen

Implications for Network-Centric Warfare, March 2006

Jessica Glicken Turnley

Narcoterrorism in Latin America, April 2006

Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

The Changing Nature of Warfare, the Factors Mediating Future 

Conflict, and Implications for SOF, April 2006

John B. Alexander

Civil-Military Operations and Professional Military Education, 

May 2006

James F. Powers, Jr. 
vii

Contents

Preface ............................................................................... ix

Foreword ............................................................................ xi

1. Introduction ..................................................................... 1

2. Blogs and the Blogosphere ............................................... 5

3. Implications for Influence Operations ............................. 19

4. Conclusions ................................................................... 27

Endnotes ............................................................................ 29

About the Authors .............................................................. 33

ix

Preface

Joint Special Operations University publications focus on topics pertinent to Special Operations Forces’ role in the ongoing global conflict, the Global War on Terror—or as it has recently 

come to be called, the Long War. This short pamphlet looks at a 

particular segment of the information operations campaign and the 

importance of the internet, blogging in particular, within information 

operations. 

This is a different type of war. It is the first major and long-term 

conflict where the use of the global communications tool, the internet, plays a prominent role. The authors examine blogging from a 

definitional point of view as well as its suitability as a potential tool 

in the U.S. military’s information operations quiver. In their conclusion, the authors explicitly lay out the limitations of this work but 

clearly indicate areas for further potential work and research on the 

topic. JSOU hopes the community finds this work of interest and it 

sparks additional research into blogging as an information operations venue. 

In many ways, the role of the internet is as significant as the role 

of newspapers in the 18th and 19th century and of television during the Vietnam War. Anything that helps understand this media’s 

impact on the public and the Long War is important. We firmly believe 

this publication adds to these discussions. 

Lieutenant Colonel Michael C. McMahon

Director, Strategic Studies Department

Joint Special Operations University 

xi

Foreword

U.S. information operations (IO) in Iraq have run up against a formidable cyber-savvy foe in the fight to influence 

and control cyberspace. The insurgent cyberforce has fought well 

against the highly-financed and organized U.S. IO community. Major 

James Kinniburgh and Dr. Dorothy Denning offer another avenue in 

this Joint Special Operations University report for IO specialists to 

bring to the fight, namely the blogosphere. 

A blog is a journal available on the Web that comes in many forms 

of potential influence: political, online diary, video, spam, mobile 

(Internet postings from a mobile phone, etc.), or travel, among others. The authors offer a balanced critique of the positive and negative 

aspects of blogging, and then offer the opportunities of this trend for 

influence operations. 

Their analysis rightly starts with the foreign information environment against which blogs would be generated. Here lies the crux 

of the issue: can U.S. bloggers properly use language and culture, 

and an understanding of how information is spread within a specific culture, to influence members or sectors of a population? This 

is an extremely sensitive topic requiring much finesse. The idea is 

so difficult to implement, the authors note, that it may require the 

U.S. to “clandestinely recruit or hire prominent bloggers or other 

persons of prominence already within the target nations, group, or 

community to pass the message.” Blogging for influence requires the 

ability to debate points that require inside knowledge about several 

topics. Insurgents, for example, have been instructed to explain on 

the Internet why advancing jihad is important and how to continue 

contrasting Islam from other religions. 

Major Kinniburgh and Dr. Denning offer guidance on how to 

conduct Web-log intelligence collection and blog operations and how 

such units might advance the cause of influence. This indicates that 

conflict has moved into the virtual arena of open source confrontation. They add that methods for measuring the effectiveness of these 

techniques remain to be developed.

The spread of information technology is so rapid that this work 

on blogging will soon be outdated. Future reports on the impact of 

insurgents using “Voice over Internet Protocol” (for example, Skype) 

or the impact of new text-messaging procedures must now be 
xii

contemplated. IO specialists such as the authors will be very busy in 

the coming years. 

This work is highly recommended for all IO personnel as well as 

PSYOP and deception specialists.

Mr. Timothy L. Thomas

FMSO, Analyst 
1

Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

1. Introduction

September, 2004: The 2004 presidential campaign is in full swing 

and the producers of the television news show 60 Minutes Wednesday, at CBS, have received a memo purporting to show that the 

sitting President, George W. Bush, had used his family connections 

to avoid his service obligations. The story, given the controversy 

and ratings it will generate, is just too good not to run. On cursory 

inspection, the documents and their source appear legitimate. On 

September 8th, 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes and anchorman 

Dan Rather decide to air it ... 

Within minutes of airtime, posted discussion participants at 

the conservative Web site FreeRepublic.com posited that the documents were faked. Bloggers at Power Line1 and Little Green Footballs 

(littlegreenfootballs.com) picked up these 

comments and posted them and their 

associated hyperlinks on their own blogs. 

The clues to the now infamous Killian 

memo forgeries, the bloggers pointed out, 

were the superscript ‘th’ and the Times 

New Roman font; both indicated the use 

of modern word-processing programs 

rather than a 1972-era typewriter. The 

signatures on at least two of the documents appeared to have been forged, and some with experience 

called into question the very format of the memo, purported to show 

The clues to the now 

infamous Killian memo 

forgeries ... indicated 

the use of modern wordprocessing programs 

rather than a 1972-era 

typewriter. 

Abstract

This paper explores the potential value of blogs to military information 

strategy. It examines whether blogs are influential, whether the information environment adequately supports blogging for an information campaign, and whether blogs offer a significant, reliable source of intelligence 

for information operations. While we can make reasonably certain statements about blogging in general that can be applied universally, the actual 

employment of tactics and techniques comes down to cases. The successful employment of blog operations depends on a number of variables that 

must be determined during intelligence preparation of the environment. 
2

 JSOU Report 06-5

orders issued to then-Lieutenant Bush. The story was given even 

greater attention after noted pundit, Matt Drudge, posted a link to 

the Free Republic thread on his own Web site, The Drudge Report 

(www.drudgereport.com). 

What followed initially was what is known as a “blogswarm,” 

where the story was carried on multiple blogs, and then later a 

“mediaswarm.” As a result of these phenomena and CBS’ inability 

to authenticate the documents, several CBS employees, including 

producer Mary Mapes, were asked to resign. Within a month, Dan 

Rather announced his own retirement.

What garnered considerable interest afterward was how a group 

of nonprofessional journalists was able to outperform and “bring 

down” two icons of the traditional media, CBS and Dan Rather. CBS 

executive Jonathan Klein said of the bloggers, “You couldn’t have a 

starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances 

(at 60 Minutes) and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas 

writing.” 2

Some columnists, like Corey Pein at the Colombia Journalism 

Review, explained the spread of the story (a.k.a., “Memogate,” or 

“Rathergate”) as the result of journalistic haste and the rapid coalescence of popular opinion, supported and enhanced by a blogging 

network of Republican story spinners.3

CBS offered its own explanations for the problems surrounding 

the story in its final report on the matter. The CBS reviewers found 

four major factors that contributed to the incident: weak or cursory 

efforts to establish the documents’ source and credibility, failed 

efforts to determine the document’s authenticity, nominal efforts at 

provenance, and excessive competitive zeal (the rush to air).4

Despite the fact that the initial questions about the CBS story 

were posted on a discussion forum instead of a blog, the partially 

erroneous attribution of the entire “Memogate” incident, and other 

stories that followed, to “bloggers” likely increased public awareness 

of blogs and blogging, and their potential power to influence. Governments have noticed this potential, and many authoritarian governments censor blogs believed to threaten their regimes. Iran has 

imprisoned bloggers who offended the ruling mullahs. At the same 

time, however, Iranian officials recognized the value of blogs to information strategy, holding the Revolutionary Bloggers Conference to 

promote pro-regime blogs in February 2006.5
3

Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

The rise of military bloggers from deployed areas such as Iraq 

has raised concerns with U.S. Department of Defense officials that 

information posted in a blog could compromise operations security 

(OPSEC). Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that caters to the overseas 

military personnel, quoted a recent memo from the Army Chief of 

Staff, General Peter Schoomaker:

“The enemy aggressively ‘reads’ our open source and continues to exploit such information for use against our forces,” 

he wrote. “Some soldiers continue to post sensitive information to Internet Web sites and blogs. ... Such OPSEC 

violations needlessly place lives at risk and degrade the 

effectiveness of our operations.” 6

This paper explores the possibility of incorporating blogs and 

blogging into military information strategy, primarily as a tool 

for influence. Towards that end, we examine the value of blogs as 

targets of and/or platforms for military influence operations and 

supporting intelligence operations. Influence operations are a subset 

of information operations (IO) that includes the core capabilities of 

Psychological Operations (PSYOP) and Military Deception (MILDEC), 

and the related capabilities of Public Affairs (PA), Military Support 

to Public Diplomacy (PD) and Civil Affairs/Civil-Military Operations 

(CA/CMO).

To evaluate the IO potential for blogs, we seek answers to two 

questions:

1. Are blogs truly influential, and if so, in what manner?

2. Does the information environment support blogging as part 

of an information campaign? 

Before addressing these questions, however, we first review the 

nature and structure of the blogosphere.

5

Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

2. Blogs and the Blogosphere

The blogosphere is the world of blogs, bloggers, and their interconnections. It lies mostly within the Web, but it intersects traditional media and social networks as well. To illustrate, 

The Washington Post features several blogs on its Web site alongside 

the newspaper’s traditional editorials and op-ed columns, and blog 

entries often make their way into social networks through e-mail. 

Entrenched Inequality and Hierarchy

The Web is generally considered egalitarian, in that anyone can set 

up a Web site. In practice, however, not all nodes are equal. Indeed, 

the network formed by Web pages and their links to each other is 

often said to follow a power law, meaning that the probability that 

any given node (Web page) is linked to k other nodes is proportional 

to 1/kn for some constant n (about 2 for the Web). 

The power law implies that for any given node in the network, 

the odds are that it will have relatively few connections, but there 

will be a few favored nodes with a disproportionally large number of 

connections. A network that follows a power law distribution is said 

to be scale free.

7

Research has shown that the blogosphere itself approximates a 

scale-free net. This is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the middle 

part of the curve as computed by Technorati in 2006.8 However, the 

power law may not be an exact fit to the blogosphere. Daniel Drezner 

and Henry Farrell found that the distribution of links among political 

blogs was closer to a lognormal distribution rather than a straight 

power law.9

Regardless of whether the power law or lognormal distribution 

better models the full blogosphere, both distributions are highly 

skewed. This inequality reflects a hierarchy among blogs. Simply 

put, a few blogs are extremely popular (have lots of inbound connections), while the majority are hardly noticed or lie somewhere in 

between. This hierarchy is generally reinforced through a process 

called “preferential attachment.” As a scale-free network grows, the 

established nodes that are already highly connected tend to pick 

up the new links. In short, the “rich get richer.” The nodes with few 

connections also gain links, but the overall inequality is reinforced.11

This does not imply that new nodes cannot rise to prominence or 
6

 JSOU Report 06-5

that established ones will never lose their position, only that change 

is likely to be slow and that the overall shape of the distribution will 

be retained. Drezner and Farrell suggest that the lognormal distribution is more suited to change than the power law, allowing poorly 

linked nodes to increase their ratings.12

The implications of the entrenched inequality of the blogosphere 

for infl uence operations are threefold. 

First, other things being equal, the blogs that are linked to the 

most often are likely to be among the most infl uential. 

Second, the vast majority of blogs can be ignored, concentrating efforts on the most popular blogs. 

Third, bringing a new blog into prominence is likely to be slow 

and diffi cult. It is not, however, impossible. 

Technorati, which ranks blogs in terms of the most links from 

unique sources, found that the third and fi fth ranked blogs in February 2006 did not even make the top 100 in April 2005.13

•

•

•

Figure 1. Number of Blogs by Number of Links. (Used by permission 

from Technorati10)
7

Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

It is also useful to consider that the preferential attachment 

refl ected in the growth of the Web and blogosphere is the result 

of individual users’ choices. Links are added by people, not some 

abstract network entity implementing a formula for network growth. 

The decision to add a link is based on social considerations, such as 

trust, reputation or social pressure, as well as on personal preferences. Thus, the forces underlying the structure of the Internet and 

the blogosphere are ecological and selective. 

Who Blogs and Why

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project (PIP), 

between February and November of 2004, the numbers of blog readers and blog creators both increased by 50 percent or more, reaching 

about 7 percent and 27 percent respectively of Internet users.14 However, more recent data from Technorati.com indicates that the blogosphere doubled in size about every six months during a three-year 

period ending in March 2006 (Figure 2).15 As of April 2006, Technorati.com was tracking 35.3 million weblogs and recording 75,000 

new ones each day. Some of these sites are “splogs” (spam blogs) 

Figure 2. Growth of Blogosphere. (Used by permission from Technorati17)
8

 JSOU Report 06-5

and not actual blogs. Splogs mimic blogs, but contain entries full of 

hyperlinked text that directs readers to other sites. From 2 percent 

to 8 percent of the blogs created daily in late 2005 were said to fall 

into this category.16

Even subtracting the splogs, we are left with millions of blogs. 

However, this should only be interpreted as indicative of blogging’s 

popularity as a format for information dissemination, and not as a 

measure of blog influence—just as reporting the number of PSYOP 

leaflets dropped says nothing about their effectiveness at influencing 

a target audience.

With regard to the bloggers themselves, several studies exist that 

quantify and qualify American Internet users.18,19 Nearly 75 percent 

of Americans use the Internet regularly, and those who use it most 

regularly tend to be young, male, have some degree of college education and generally are in or from the middle to upper-middle income 

brackets. These are the people who tend to be the most politically 

active, as well. Blog creators follow this trend, being generally young, 

affluent, educated males with broadband access and at least six 

years’ experience online.20

A study by Nardi et al. identifies five major motivations for blogging:21

Documenting the author’s life and experiences.

Expressing opinions and commentary.

Venting strong emotions.

Working out ideas through writing (In the words of Sherry 

Turkle,22 using the blog and computer as “objects to think 

with.”)

Forming and/or maintaining virtual communities.

Another motivator may be the potential 

for financial gain, as Internet advertisers seek 

to capitalize on bloggers’ status and reputation by placing static, banner, and pop-up 

ads on their sites. Moreover, the number of 

professional bloggers is likely to increase as 

the media comes to accept them as legitimate 

“citizen journalists.” It is in this role of citizen 

journalist and media watchdog that bloggers 

like Glen Reynolds, creator of the highly hyperlinked blog, InstaPundit.com, revel. Precisely because of a perception that the big media 

are motivated less by the pursuit of truth and more by profit, cor-

•

•

•

•

•

 ... the number of 

professional bloggers 

is likely to increase 

as the media comes 

to accept them as 

legitimate “citizen 

journalists.” 
9

Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

porate interest, and political agendas, many blogs and their authors 

have cultivated reputations as vigorous challengers of the mainstream media. 

Instapundit’s Reynolds is more than just a successful blogger. 

He is a law professor at the University of Tennessee, and an author 

of several books and articles on political ethics, environmental law 

and advanced technology. These credentials no doubt contributed to 

his success. In general, a blogger’s objectives; qualifications and life 

experiences; skills at writing, framing arguments and making use 

of the Web page medium; personal attributes such as integrity; networks of personal contacts; and levels of interaction with the audience all contribute to the audience’s assessment of the merit and 

credibility of his or her blog. These qualities are communicated to the 

audience through the blog, establishing the writer’s online persona 

and reputation. Influence, therefore, starts with the characteristics 

of the blogger. According to researcher Kathy Gill of the University of 

Washington, the most influential blogs were generally written by professionals with excellent writing skills.23 Just as during World War 

II, the military recruited the top Hollywood directors and studios to 

produce films about the war (in effect conducting domestic influence campaigns in the name of maintaining the national morale and 

support for the war effort), waging the war against terrorism and its 

underlying causes, as spelled out in the National Security Strategy, 

may require recruiting the prominent among the digirati (probably 

those native to the target region) to help in any Web-based campaign. 

The importance of credibility and reputation to blog influence 

must be taken into account when considering using a blog as a vehicle for information operations. This is especially critical given the 

apparent poor image and reputation of the U.S. government in countries we want to influence. 

Blog Influence

Examples of the increased influence of blogs the last two years include 

not only “Memogate,” but also “Gannongate” and “Jordangate.” 

When President Bush invited Jeff Gannon (a.k.a. James Gale 

Guckert)—a blogger known to be sympathetic to the Bush 

administration—to join the White House Press Corps, the 

major media vilified him as an administration stooge, and por-

•
10

 JSOU Report 06-5

trayed his inclusion in the corps as an attempt by the President to subvert the free press. Subsequent media scrutiny of 

Guckert revealed his lack of any “real” journalistic background 

and various sordid personal activities. The attention and negative publicity forced Guckert to retire from running his blog 

“Talon News” in February of 2005.24 Nevertheless, the fact of 

the White House reaching out to bloggers brought credibility to 

blogging and helped thrust the phenomenon into mainstream 

awareness. 

Military bloggers are credited with the fall of Eason Jordan, a 

senior executive at CNN who resigned earlier in 2005 over his 

remarks that U.S. troops were deliberately targeting reporters 

in Iraq. 

Nardi et al. cite two other examples of the political influence of 

blogs: Senator Trent Lott’s loss of office and presidential candidate 

Howard Dean’s success at campaign fund raising.25 The major question that arises from these cases is how could (to paraphrase CBS’ 

Klein) “some guys in pajamas writing at home” succeed in influencing 

not just the careers of prominent journalists, producers and media 

executives, but also potentially the course of an entire election or 

public opinion about a war? 

As previously observed, blog influence can be affected by the 

structure of the blogosphere, in particular, the network of hyperlinks connecting one blog to another. To illustrate, imagine starting at any random blog. 

By following a series of links from one blog 

to another, one is likely to hit one of the top 

blogs within a few hops. Moreover, information on that top blog may have propagated out 

to some of the blogs that linked to it, and so 

on from there, perhaps even reaching the blog 

from whence one started. Thus, even if one is not initially aware of a 

particular blog, one may end up there or being exposed to information posted on it. Overall, one is more likely to encounter a well-connected blog, or information posted on it, than one that is not.

The interactions with traditional media and social networks can 

further extend blog influence. For example, consider the following 

sequence of events. A blogger posts an eyewitness account of events 

during Hurricane Katrina. A reader e-mails the story to associates, 

who forward it on to others. One recipient is a television reporter, 

•

 ... imagine starting 

at any random blog. 

... one is likely to hit 

one of the top blogs 

within a few hops.
11

Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

who reports the story on the evening news. Other journalists, bloggers, and the public pick up the broadcast. Soon it is all over the 

Internet, with commentary on some of the top blogs. 

This behavior of jumping networks is common. It is illustrated by 

the CBS Memogate story in our introduction. In that case, the story 

jumped from a Web-based discussion group to blogs and traditional 

media.

Given the multiplicity of networks, their internal connectedness, 

and the ability of information to hop from one network to another, 

it would seem that information posted in a blog or elsewhere could 

reach anywhere. In practice, however, an entity’s influence—whether 

a blog, Web site, newspaper, television station, person, etc.—is seldom so broad. In one study of six social networks, researchers found 

that individuals were unlikely to be aware of what others in the network were doing if they were more than two hops away. Thus, one’s 

“sphere of observability” was restricted to direct connections and 

indirect connections involving at most one other person.26

The converse is that one’s “sphere of influence” may likewise be 

limited to roughly two hops on average. If so, bloggers who are read 

by journalists working for broadcast media with large audiences can 

have a potentially much larger sphere of influence than those who 

are read only by other bloggers or Internet users. We will return to 

this point in the discussion that follows.

Blogs vs. Traditional Media

There is a fierce debate both among bloggers and traditional journalists about which media form is most important. Some bloggers, such 

as Reynolds and other media watchers, cite a declining viewership 

of network news broadcasts,27 and a drop in circulation of daily U.S. 

newspapers (2005 circulation was 55.2 million, down from 62.3 million in 199028) as clear evidence that traditional media are on the way 

out, to be replaced by increasingly influential blogs and other Webbased media. Another data point is the number of bloggers linking to 

top news and media sites vs. the top blogs. Technorati found that the 

New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post still garnered the 

most links, but the top blog (Boing Boing) beat out such media sites 

as PBS, Fox News, and Time magazine.29

The existence of a virtual universe of readily available, easily accessible, and good quality information sources may partially 

explain the dismal ratings traditional news media sources receive. 
12

 JSOU Report 06-5

Some Internet theorists (most notably, Howard Rheingold30) and 

market analysts have predicted that the plethora of choices for information consumers means that they will choose only those sources 

that confirm their own biases without challenging them; moreover, 

consumers will customize their newsfeeds so as to focus exclusively 

on a narrow band of interests. However, a recent Pew study31 found 

that most Internet users do not consciously filter out opposing viewpoints, and tend to encounter many diverse viewpoints through sheer 

accident. Further, many news consumers in the Internet age want 

interaction, to be able to debate the stories and analyses that interest them. Interactivity is what blogs (and discussion groups) offer 

that video and print media do not. 

On the other hand, there are good reasons to believe that reports 

of the traditional media’s imminent demise are at best exaggerated, 

and at worst, misleading. For example: The same industry data cited 

by blog proponents to show the decline in U.S. newspapers’ circulation from 1960–2003 actually shows that the decline occurred only 

for evening editions, whereas morning circulation actually grew and 

Sunday circulation remained generally constant.32

Another reason is that despite the hype surrounding the emergence of blogs as a journalistic format, blogs have been clearly influential in only a few instances, while many other equally compelling 

stories never made the transition to the mainstream. And this is 

an important point: Without the “mainstream” media’s attention, 

Memogate and the others might never have amounted to anything 

more than interesting, but obscure historical footnotes. 

W.L. Bennett’s model of the infosphere (Figure 3) provides a theoretical framework that explains why this is so. Bennett stratifies the 

Infosphere into three layers: “the conventional layer of mainstream, 

mass media; the middle layer of prominent blogs, webzines, advocacy 

groups, etc.; and the micro layer of e-mail, mailing lists, and personal blogs. The most successful communications strategies involve 

methods of getting a story to access and activate all three strata.” 33

(Italics ours.) 

Bennett’s model is particularly useful, because it offers a holistic 

view of the infosphere that incorporates everything from the mass 

media to the small-time blogger, and taps into the social network to 

effect transitions between the layers. In this model, the mass media 

is vital to effective national political communication, consensus 

building, and mobilization.
13

Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

Drezner and Farrell make the point that “under specifi c 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.” They further note that a blog’s infl uence has 

as much to do with the interactions between signifi cant blogs and 

traditional media outlets as with the skewed distribution of links.34

Ultimately, each type of player has a vital role that benefi ts the 

system as a whole. The traditional media affect the Zeitgeist through 

print and broadcasting, whereas blogs and other Internet-based 

middle and micro-layer media do the same online. 

Measuring Infl uence

If we can agree, based on the anecdotal evidence, that blogs can 

be infl uential and may become more so in the future, it becomes 

important—as a determinant of the effectiveness of blogging as an 

IO weapon—to fi nd a way to measure a blog’s infl uence. This section 

describes various measures that are available today or worth considering. It is not exhaustive of all commercially available products and 

services, but attempts to cover the major metrics and some of their 

principal providers. 

We have divided measures of infl uence into two categories: measures based on site visits and measures based on links and citations. 

Figure 3. Bennett’s Model. Stories can originate in any layer. The most successful—

and infl uential—are those that spread to and prompt activity on all three layers. 

(Used by permission.) 
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Measures based on site visits include:

Visitors (aka Reach). This is the number of different users who 

visit a blog over a given period of time. Alexa (www.alexa.com) 

computes this measure, which they call Reach, on a daily basis 

for Web sites (not just blogs) visited by users of its toolbar.

Page Views. This is the number of pages viewed on a blog site 

over a given period of time. Alexa computes this measure on a 

daily basis for Web pages viewed by their toolbar users.

Traffic. This is defined by Alexa as the mean of Reach and Page 

Views averaged over a three-month interval and is the measure 

used to rank Web sites.

Interactivity. This is the degree to which a blog’s readers offer 

feedback and participate in discussions with the blogger and 

other readers. 

Alexa is the only source we found for metrics based on site visits. However, its metrics are not specific to blogs and are generally 

offered at the level of domain names rather than individual pages. 

Further, they apply only to site visits by users of their toolbar. While 

the user base is fairly large (several million), it may not be representative of the total Internet population, which is about a billion.

We are not aware of any efforts to formalize a metric based on 

interactivity or to rank blogs accordingly. Nevertheless, this measure 

is potentially valuable, as high interactivity would suggest that visitors to a blog are sufficiently engaged and influenced to respond.

Measures based on links and citations include:

Inbound Blog Links (aka Authority). This measures the number 

of other blogs with explicit links (URLs) to a particular blog. 

Technorati (technoratic.com) ranks blogs on this basis, which 

it calls Authority. Blogstreet (www.blogstreet.com) also uses 

this measure to compute a Blog Influence Quotient (BIQ); however, it only counts links in blogrolls (lists of blogs), not links 

within blog posts. 

Blog Favorites. This measures the popularity of a blog by its 

inclusion in a Favorites list. Technorati has a Favorites ranking based on information provided by their members.

Inbound Web Links (aka In-Links). This is similar to Inbound Blog 

Links, but includes links from anywhere on the Web: blogs, 

news sites, articles, personal pages, etc. Google (www.google.

com) computes this measure through its advanced search fea-

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Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

ture, but does not offer a ranking of Web sites based on the 

measure. PubSub (www.pubsub.com) has a similar measure, 

which it calls In-Links. Tools such as Link Survey© also compute this measure. 

Weighted Inbound Web Links (aka Page Rank, Link Rank). This is 

similar to the preceding, but gives more weight to links from 

high ranking sites. Google’s Page Rank metric falls in this category, as does PubSub’s Link Rank. Blogrunner (www.blogrunner.com) is also said to have used a scheme of this type 

to determine influential bloggers. Their metric was calculated 

across posts over a 60-day period.35

Search Hits. This is the number of hits obtained by searching on 

the blog name, with qualifiers as needed to distinguish it from 

other entities, while eliminating hits within the blog’s own site 

(the latter is easily specified with the advanced search option 

in Google). Search hits will pick up references to a blog that do 

not include explicit links, but it may also pick up things unrelated to the blog.

Media References. This is the number of references to a given 

blog found in the non-Web media, to include radio, television, 

magazines, journals and newspapers. 

Infosphere References. This is the total number of inbound links 

and references from all sources at all three layers of the infosphere. 

The preceding measures offer different perspectives on blog influence. For example, on April 19, 2006, Technorati showed BoingBoing 

to be number one in terms of Authority (Inbound Blog Links) but 

only third in terms of Blog Favorites. Google showed about 91,900 

Inbound Web Links and a Page Rank of 9 (out of 10); it returned 

10.5 million Search Hits for “boingboing -site:boingboing.net,” which 

excludes internal references. On the other hand, Alexa reported 

a Traffic Rank of only 1,692, showing that whereas the blog may 

indeed be popular among bloggers, it is viewed less frequently by 

Alexa users than almost seventeen hundred other Web sites. 

We are not aware of any efforts to measure Media References or 

Infosphere References. However, these broader measures are important for determining influence. Looking back to Bennett’s model, for 

a blog to be truly influential on a national scale, it has to reach and 

stimulate activity on all three layers of the infosphere, and it has to 

do this in a skewed system. New blogs constructed for the purpose 

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of conducting PSYOP may have difficulty attracting enough links to 

reach all three layers. Moreover, the information content must stimulate interest and activity on all three layers, with the limitation that 

it cannot do so effectively if it appears to be propaganda. This last 

is especially difficult because of the role that news bloggers tend to 

adopt: citizen journalists and media watchdogs. 

Although most metrics are generic and not tailored to any specific 

topic, a corporate team comprising Market Sentinel, Onalytica, and 

Immediate Future has developed metrics for measuring the influence 

of bloggers with respect to a particular issue. Using keyword searches, 

they first build a list of stakeholder sites that have addressed the 

issue more than once and are cited by multiple sources. Then they 

examine three measures: citations by other stakeholders, how often 

a particular stakeholder serves as a broker of relevant information to 

another stakeholder (called information influence), and the amount 

of influence given to a stakeholder by other important stakeholders 

(called issue influence). The third metric appears to be related to the 

weighted metrics listed above. The metrics were used to show that 

Jeff Jarvis’s blog, Buzzmachine, was the most influential source of 

information on the Internet regarding complaints about Dell Corporation’s customer service in 2005.36

Being able to restrict the scope of a metric would be useful for 

influence operations. Besides topic area, metrics could be tailored to 

criteria such as nationality or demographics. For example, one might 

be interested in the most influential blogs written by Iraqi authors, 

read by Iraqi’s under 30, or receiving the most links from Arab bloggers. The most popular blogs overall might be irrelevant in certain 

regions or among certain audiences. 

Another metric that could be useful, particularly when combined 

with those outlined above, is the frequency of postings on a particular topic or containing given key words and phrases. BlogPulse 

(www.blogpulse.com), for example, monitors the content of posts in 

the blogosphere in order to measure which topics are “hot.” Users 

can also request a chart of the percent of blog posts on a given topic 

plotted over a one to six month time interval. A chart on the topic 

“Danish cartoon” computed in early February 2006 showed a sharp 

upward spike in posts following eruption of the cartoon controversy. 

Being in a position to direct an already influential blog onto a hot 

topic could give an IO advantage in that domain.
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Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

In order to select or design a useful blog for conducting IO, developing measures of the blog’s ability to reach and activate the conventional, middle and micro layers of the entire infosphere, as well as 

the development of a method for measuring the change in attitudes, 

thinking, beliefs and ultimately actions that are directly attributable 

to the blog, is critical in order to fine tune military efforts. Selecting 

or creating a likely candidate blog is the first step, since the hard 

measure of effectiveness must necessarily come after an operation. 

As previously noted, a blog’s popularity and credibility will be 

affected by the blogger’s perceived reputation, knowledge, and skills. 

In addition, it is likely to be affected by the perceived quality and 

credibility of the blog itself. Factors that could affect readers’ assessments of a blog include: 

Design: the general appearance and functionality of a blog, 

measured according to the standards of the target audience. 

This includes such factors as quality of the graphics, professionalism, and ease of use.

Utility: the relevancy of a blog’s contents to issues of interest to 

the target community. 

Accuracy and consistency: whether information provided by a 

blog is generally correct or consistent with other information 

accepted by the target audience.

Currency: the frequency with which a blog is updated. 

Although we know of no studies that correlate these or other blog 

criteria with blog popularity or influence, we can draw on research 

conducted at Stanford on factors that affect the credibility of Web 

sites. They found that viewers paid particular attention to design, 

but that utility and accuracy also mattered.37 Postings that are well 

researched and thoughtful, and that bear out this initial assessment, may draw more links than ignorant diatribe, although this is 

not always the case.

A note of caution is due. As we will see later, the demographics 

of Internet penetration and use in a given country limits the ability 

of Web-based media like blogs to reach some target groups, unless 

the information is picked up by traditional media. A careful analysis 

of the media environment within the target country must be done 

before commencing operations.

Another obstacle to analyzing blogs by ranking is the recent emergence of “splogs,” or spam blogs, mentioned earlier. As Kesmodel 

points out, some blog hosting services may lack sufficient controls to 

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 JSOU Report 06-5

prevent automated software from creating splogs in bulk.38 Because 

many page-ranking systems (not just blogs) are based on a site’s 

number of inbound links, as described above, splogs can artificially 

inflate a site’s Web status. It is incumbent upon the analyst, therefore, to ensure that all of the measures indicated above, including 

the additional factors, are collected and correlated to avoid improper 

targeting for collection or exploitation. 
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Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

3. Implications for 

 Influence Operations

W e began with two research questions: 

 1. Are blogs truly influential, and if so, in what manner?

 2. Does the information environment support blogging 

 as part of an information campaign?

The answer to the first question is that a small number of blogs are, 

or have the potential to become, influential in the broadest sense. 

A blog’s influence depends in large part upon the reputation of its 

author and its content, but also upon the mathematical laws that 

govern the Blogosphere, and the blog’s ability to reach and activate 

the three primary layers of the infosphere. Blogs that score high in 

the metrics identified above seem most likely to have influence or 

become influential.

The answer to the second question is: It depends. One factor to consider 

is Internet penetration among the population of interest. In some 

parts of the world, only a small minority of the population has Internet access, and those that do may have similar wealth, education, 

experiences and outlooks. In such cases, one cannot expect to reach 

the masses, and intelligence derived from blogs cannot be held to 

represent views of the majority of the population. On the other hand, 

as noted earlier, information posted to blogs can jump to traditional 

media and travel through social networks. Hence, even if members 

of a population do not have access to the Internet or read a particular blog, they may be influenced by it if local elites, including mainstream media elites, do.

 Some countries such as China censor the Internet, prohibiting 

their citizens from publishing certain information on a Web site or 

blog, or from accessing certain sites. In that environment, it may be 

hard to get a complete intelligence picture from bloggers inside the 

country or to influence the population with a blog that may be subject to censorship.

On the other hand, blogs that serve a small community, or that 

fill a specific niche may be useful for monitoring and targeting select 

elements. People may and do serve in more than one social capacity; they may represent a class of community or peer opinion lead-
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ers—useful as both targets of influence operations and as vehicles 

for disseminating strategic communications. 

This discussion of communities leads us to another point of difficulty in using blogs for IO. Segmentary opposition and its gentler 

cousin, in-group/out-group dynamics, may prevent a foreign audience from taking an overtly U.S. government-run or sponsored blog 

seriously. Even American blogs show a high incidence of ethnic clustering,39 and the deep-seated fissures between major tribal groups, 

and often between subgroups, frequently define traditionally tribal 

societies like those in Afghanistan. Even if there is no widespread 

preconception about U.S. use of propaganda, it may be easy for foreign audiences to dismiss the U.S. perspective with “Yes, but you 

aren’t one of us, you don’t really understand us.” 

In this regard, information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other 

persons of prominence already within 

the target nation, group, or community 

to pass the U.S. message. In this way, 

the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of 

preexisting intellectual and social capital. Sometimes numbers can 

be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific 

person or promote a specific message may be worth considering.40

On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as 

witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. 

military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press 

under their own names.41 People do not like to be deceived, and the 

price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some 

time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may 

impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and 

linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful 

effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In 

some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs 

as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable 

information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in 

rank fairly rapidly.

Any blogs and bloggers serving an IO mission must be coordinated and synchronized with the overall influence effort in time and 

 ... information strategists 

can consider clandestinely 

recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers ...
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Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

message. However, they must be prepared to argue and debate with 

their audience successfully and independently on behalf of the U.S. 

policy stance. In this sense, bloggers must be able to “circumvent the 

hierarchy” as blogger George Dafermos put it.42 This means that they 

must be trusted implicitly to handle the arguments without forcing 

them to communicate “solely by means of marketing pitches and 

press releases.”

There are certain to be cases where some blog, outside the control of the U.S. government, promotes a message that is antithetical 

to U.S. interests, or actively supports the informational, recruiting 

and logistical activities of our enemies. The initial reaction may be 

to take down the site, but this is problematic in that doing so does 

not guarantee that the site will remain down. As has been the case 

with many such sites, the offending site will likely move to a different 

host server, often in a third country. Moreover, such action will likely 

produce even more interest in the site and its contents. Also, taking 

down a site that is known to pass enemy EEIs (essential elements of 

information) and that gives us their key messages denies us a valuable information source. This is not to say that once the information 

passed becomes redundant or is superseded by a better source that 

the site should be taken down. At that point the enemy blog might be 

used covertly as a vehicle for friendly information operations. Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few 

words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s 

credibility with the audience. Better yet, if the blogger happens to be 

passing enemy communications and logistics data, the information 

content could be corrupted. If the messages are subtly tweaked and 

the data corrupted in the right way, the enemy may reason that the 

blogger in question has betrayed them and either take down the site 

(and the blogger) themselves, or by threatening such action, give the 

U.S. an opportunity to offer the individual amnesty in exchange for 

information. 

There will also be times when it is thought to be necessary, in 

the context of an integrated information campaign, to pass false or 

erroneous information through the media, on all three layers, in support of military deception activities. Given the watchdog functions 

that many in the blogging community have assumed—not just in 

the U.S., but also around the world—doing so jeopardizes the entire 

U.S. information effort. Credibility is the heart and soul of influence operations. In these cases, extra care must be taken to ensure 
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plausible deniability and nonattribution, as well as employing a wellthought-out deception operation that minimizes the risks of exposure. Because of the potential blowback effect, information strategy 

should avoid planting false information as much as possible.

This brings us to an even more fundamental issue. Because the 

U.S. military is prohibited from conducting information operations 

against U.S. persons, it is reluctant to engage in Internet IO operations that might be characterized as PSYOP or deception. Once information is on the Internet, it can reach anyone, including those in 

the U.S. Thus, while the military offers factual news on the Internet 

through Public Affairs, it generally stays away from commentary and 

IO. At least initially, this challenge might be addressed by sticking 

with accurate, factual information of value to readers. Blogging can 

support PA and focus on improving communications and building 

trust with local communities and the public. A blog can be used to 

solicit and respond to questions and concerns from target populations. In addition, military leaders might offer personal commentary 

on nonmilitary blogs, with the usual disclaimers.

To use blogs effectively for an information campaign may require 

a new intelligence tool, one that can monitor and rapidly assess the 

informational events occurring in a specific portion of the blogosphere 

and their effects (if any) on the three layers of the local infosphere.

Blogs and Intelligence

Weblog derived intelligence can be considered a subset of both communications intelligence (COMINT) and open-source intelligence 

(OSINT). We would expect to see it used primarily in support of information operations, although it does offer a broad range of possible 

applications. It may consist of computer network exploitation (CNE) 

done in support of integrated PSYOP, PA, PD, MILDEC, and CA/CMO 

operations. The value of using blogs and blogging in support of a 

military information strategy depends heavily on the target region’s 

Internet penetration and regulation (especially censorship). Further, 

if the number of Internet users is small, it is necessary to determine 

who is using the capability and why. Again, this very basic information should be collected as a part of the initial intelligence preparation of the environment, but once obtained it becomes a significant 

part of the baseline assessment for determining the need for, and the 

value of, conducting blog-based information operations. 
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Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

If assessment of the information environment indicates the presence of blogging activity, the next step is to look at the bloggers and 

their audiences, determine the blogs’ functions (per Nardi et al.43), 

and construct a preliminary analysis in terms of the metrics (blog 

visits and incoming links and references) and indicators of quality 

and credibility (design, utility, accuracy, and currency) identified 

earlier. Questions that must be answered include:

How large is the blogging community?

Who are the bloggers? And what are their positions and status 

within their communities and within the country as a whole 

(their general public roles and reputations)?

Who is the target community or audience for each blog?

Do the blogs address issues of social and political importance 

to the community they serve?

What biases are observed in each blog? Do they reinforce or 

challenge the biases of their audience?

Do any bloggers invite and engage in free and open interaction 

with their audience?

Answering these questions will require appropriate responses 

from intelligence agencies at all levels. National level agencies are 

perhaps best suited to conduct comprehensive media, human factors and social network analyses to identify and characterize the 

prominent and/or influential bloggers within their social networks, 

and their connections to the larger community of traditional media 

journalists. These agencies should also examine the frequency with 

which each blog is referenced in the other media in the target region, 

and perhaps engage in CNE to study reactions and references in the 

micro layer. Certain other existing assets, most notably the Foreign 

Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) and the Armed Forces Information Service (AFIS), already cull through thousands of broadcast 

and print news pieces from around the world, based on topic, and 

could with relative ease look for blog references as well.

The importance of interactivity to a blog’s influence is proportional to the size of the blog’s potential audience. In areas where 

Internet access is limited to top government officials only, interactivity may be of relatively low importance. In areas where a ruling or 

elite social class has access, interactivity can be more important. In 

countries where Internet access is widespread, but free exchange of 

ideas is limited and/or discouraged, interactivity becomes golden. 

Again, the application of the general theory and principles must be 

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flexible enough to account for differing political, social, and cultural 

conditions. Social network analysis and human factors analysis must 

be combined and correlated to craft specific messages to target specific bloggers and members of their audiences. Combined with a good 

sociological, psychological and cultural framework for interpreting 

and predicting attitudes, behaviors, communications and actions, 

intelligence derived from and/or about blogs can be highly effective 

in supporting influence and counterinfluence campaigns.

The entrenched inequality that characterizes the blogosphere 

has some implications for intelligence analysis and assessment. On 

the positive side, the fact that the most influential blogs generally 

will be the most authoritative (i.e., have the highest number of links) 

limits the number of blogs that must be read to glean the key or most 

widely held perspectives, concerns, attitudes and knowledge that 

motivate the audience. A survey of only these blogs can provide a 

rapid method for assessing the effectiveness of other influence operations in much the same way that a Civil Affairs soldier can assess 

general attitudes and mood by reading the graffiti on the walls. On 

the down side, in heavily Internetted regions, the tendency toward 

monopoly that results from systemic self-optimization will result in 

increasing homeostasis. Authors of top blogs in these environments 

may become disconnected from the content of their blogs and the 

concerns of their audience. This is because the needs of maintaining the blog may override the ability of the blogger to survey other 

blogs, conduct research and maintain interactivity. Because of this 

tendency, and in areas where only the elites or the government have 

Internet access, the content of the top blogs may not correlate well 

with majority concerns/opinions. As always, intelligence drawn from 

blogs may be invalid without confirmation from other sources.

Analysts working with blog intelligence must have access to the 

operational disciplines that they support; the closer the better. We 

recommend the creation of small special operations units with operational authority and integrated intelligence collections and analysis 

to conduct blog-based operations.

Recently, analysts at the Open Source Center (OSC) under the 

auspices of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) have been 

monitoring and following significant foreign blogs and bloggers with 

the primary goal of exploiting them as sources of intelligence. A February 2006 posting on the organization’s “Blog on Blogs” about Iranian expatriate blogger Hossein Derakhshan (“Hoder”), described 
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Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

him as “one of the most influential Iranian bloggers.” 44 OSC analysts 

used Traffic (based on Reach and Page Views) from Alexa; Authority (Inbound Blog Links) from Technorati; and frequency of postings 

from Blog-Pulse. All three sources share the advantage of ready availability, but are limited for reasons discussed earlier. 

Besides these and other metrics described earlier, there are other 

tools that can help the intelligence analyst. BlogPulse’s Conversation 

Tracker and TalkDigger (www.talkdigger.com), for example, track 

conversations as they spread through the blogosphere. TouchGraph 

(www.touchgraph.com) provides a tool for visualizing links among 

sites. 

Blog-Based Operations

To function most effectively, units conducting blog-based operations 

must be staffed appropriately. Ideally, such units would be drawn 

from the special operations and intelligence communities, because 

of their historical experience in and ability to conduct (when tasked) 

sensitive operations. Linguists and intelligence analysts (preferably 

analysts who are also linguists), who are commanded or advised by 

qualified PSYOP or IO officer should form the core of such a unit. 

These capabilities must be augmented through liaison relationships 

with the other influence organizations, those responsible for planning 

and conducting PSYOP, PA, PD, CA/CMO and MILDEC. Because of 

the unique nature of blog-related intelligence, comprising both open 

and highly classified sources and producing an output intended for 

open distribution, a blog operations unit should have solid information, operations, and network security programs in place. It also 

needs oversight. 

In order to act and react efficiently in managing bloggers and 

blogs, the intelligence specialists and planners who have the knowledge should be the ones running the actual blog. Or, in cases 

where indigenous bloggers and their blogs have been identified and 

recruited, the blog operations cell should also house the case officer 

managing the asset, having done the work to cultivate and recruit 

him or her. The same metrics used to select a blog can also serve as 

indirect measures of effectiveness; for example: 

Once blog operations have begun, does the blog attract new 

inbound links? 

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Is there an increase over time in the blog’s ranking via various 

metrics?

Through polling and media analysis, can a change in public 

opinion be correlated with growth in the blog’s indicators? 

What does content analysis of the interaction that occurs with 

the blogger on the site reveal (change in opinions posted by 

readers? positive or negative?) 

Do the comments on the blog correlate with public opinion 

results obtained by polling and/or portrayed in the mainstream media? 

Does the blog get referenced by the mainstream media in the 

target country, and with what degree of frequency? 

Do other sources of intelligence confirm these indicators?

Like any other influence operation, blog operations must be given 

time to work. There are no magic bullets. We would suggest quarterly reviews of the blog’s effectiveness along these lines and then 

adjusting fire to reverse any negative trends and accelerate positive 

trends.

This fusion of intelligence and operations is the cost of and the 

requirement for operating in a medium that rewards the efficient 

distribution of knowledge and information above all other considerations, and is also in the best traditions of the intelligence and special 

operations communities. Pushing operational authority out to those 

best equipped to receive, analyze and act in a dynamic information 

environment maximizes both efficiency and effectiveness. Although 

a blog-based operations unit could be based either domestically or 

in theater, the best option is to forward deploy it as a cell, just as 

we deploy our PSYOP analysts and production and dissemination 

capabilities.

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Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

4. Conclusion

Over the course of this paper, we have shown some of the 

potential uses of the blogging phenomenon for military 

information strategy. While we can make reasonably certain statements about blogging in general that can be applied universally, the actual employment of tactics and techniques comes down 

to cases. The successful employment of blog operations depends on 

a number of variables that must be determined during intelligence 

preparation of the environment. In environments that support them, 

properly conducted blog operations have the potential to be extraordinarily powerful, as demonstrated by the high profile incidents 

involving blogs during the 2004 presidential campaign. 

Some of the possible techniques we have explored in our discussion of the military use of blogging require a certain degree of subtlety, finesse, and yes, covert action. By giving military blog-based 

operations to the Intelligence and Special Operations communities, 

these uses become less risky and more feasible. However, military 

operations must necessarily remain only a part of a larger effort. 

Given the current state of U.S. and international law, and the distribution of the necessary authorities among many (often competing) 

government agencies, any future conduct of influence operations 

through the blogosphere will require a truly integrated interagency 

approach, and thus belongs properly at the national level as a part 

of an overarching Strategic Communications effort. 

We have also identified several areas that may be of interest 

to other researchers. Chief among these are the questions of how 

various blog metrics relate to each other and to actual influence as 

determined by changes of behavior in a target population. Also, while 

we have identified what we think are significant indicators of a blog’s 

influence, techniques for measuring them and testing our hypothesis largely remain to be explored. Finally, the suggested techniques 

for using computer network attacks against blogs in support of influence operations are hypothetical as well, and require testing before 

they can be employed.

One of the significant limitations of this paper, as an initial foray 

into military use of the blogosphere, is that much of the information 

available concerns American blogs, run by Americans, largely for an 

American audience. Military use of the blogosphere must necessar-
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ily focus on foreign blogs, bloggers and audiences. However, because 

some factors, such as the scale-free nature of the Internet and the 

psychological basis of influence are universals, we hope to lay a general basis for military use of the blogosphere that can be adapted to 

specific tactical circumstances by information operators.
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Endnotes

 1. “The Sixty-First Minute,” Power Line, 9 September 2004, http://powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php (accessed 19 April 2006).

 2. Parker, K., “Bloggers Knew!” Article on TownHall.com, 15 September 2004, http://www.townhall.com/columnists/kathleenparker/

kp20040915.shtml (accessed 20 September 2005).

 3. Pein, C., “Blog-Gate: Yes, CBS Screwed Up Badly in ‘Memogate’ — But 

So Did Those Who Covered the Affair” Columbia Journalism Review 

Online, January-February 2005, http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/1/

pein-blog.asp (accessed 20 September 2005). 

 4. Thornburgh, T. and Boccardi, L., Report of the Independent Review 

Panel on the September 8, 2004 60 Minutes Wednesday Segment “For 

the Record” Concerning President Bush’s Texas Air National Guard 

Service, 5 January 2005, http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/htdocs/

pdf/complete_report/CBS_Report.pdf (accessed 19 September 2005).

 5. Kenny, S., “The Revolution Will Be Blogged,” Salon, 6 March 2006, 

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/06/iranian_bloggers/index_np.html (accessed 18 April 2006).

 6. Shane, L., “Military Issues Content Warning to Combat-Zone Bloggers,” Stars and Stripes, 4 October 2005, http://www.estripes.com/

article.asp?section=104&article=31111&archive=true (accessed 6 

October 2005).

 7. Barabási, A.L. and Bonabeau, E., “Scale-Free Networks,” Scientific 

American, May 2003, pp. 60-69.

 8. Sifry, D., “State of the Blogosphere, February 2006, Part 2: Beyond 

Search,” Technorati Weblog, 13 February 2006, http://www.sifry.

com/alerts/archives/000420.html (accessed 8 May 2006).

 9. Drezner, D. and Farrell, H., “The Power and Politics of Blogs,” presented to the 2004 American Political Science Association, July 2004, 

http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~farrell/blogpaperfinal.pdf (accessed 2 

October 2005).

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33

Kinniburgh and Denning: Blogs 

About the Authors

Major James Kinniburgh is an Air Force officer currently serving 

as Information Operations Branch Chief at the Joint Special Operations University, Hurlburt Field, Florida. Areas of 

special research include cybersociology, intelligence, influence and 

information operations, and special operations. He received his M.S. 

in Defense Analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School. 

Dr. Dorothy Denning is Professor of Defense Analysis at the 

Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and author 

of Information Warfare and Security. Her areas of research 

include influence and information operations, cybercrime, terrorism, 

information security, and trust. She received her Ph.D. in computer 

science from Purdue University.