Robin Roger’s Masters thesis, “Creating community and gaining readers through newspaper blogs,” gets great electrons at the Greensboro News and Record Editor’s Blog by John Robinson and more from Ed Cone on his Word Up blog.

Both note Robin’s conclusion (so I will too):

Findings suggest that the effects of high levels of community are cumulative; therefore, creating a blogging community can draw new readers — great news for newspaper marketers. Results from the study also suggest a virtuous cycle: frequent blog reading seems to lead to a sense of community, and vice versa.

I was lucky to have Robin in my class on blogging, community and citizen journalism last fall and to be on the committee along with Brian Carroll for her thesis which was chaired by Phil Meyer.

Here is Robin’s thesis [in PDF]