Federal Agency Blogs: Agency Mission, Audience, and Blog Forms

This article reports on a systematic investigation of every federal department and independent agency for evidence of a current or past blog with a focus on three questions: Which agencies are using blogs, how are they using them, and why are agencies blogging? The question of why becomes particularly important as more agencies establish this online presence. We examine the relationships among the mission of the agency, the audience of the blog, and the form of the blog to address these questions. We also explore the relationship between blogging and the technological sophistication of the agency generally, and portray patterns of duration and density of traffic on the blogs. A number of hypotheses related to agency constituency-building and communication are examined.