In regards to my thesis about the impact of blogs on political campaigns I've been trying hard to locate arguments stating why and how blogs can induce power. I just came across an article discussing the impact of blogs on the outcome of Labour's deputy leadership election in UK in which Mike Ion hits the nail on the head:
Blogs take the media out of the hands of the corporate world and put it into the hands of anyone with a computer and an internet connection. Their audiences tend to be political junkies who have almost non-stop access to a computer and large amounts of time to surf the internet for breaking news. Yet, in part, this is what makes some political bloggers so powerful - their ability to influence the influencers!
Just as Lazarsfeld would have said it.