This poster reports a case study in applying formal modeling tools to the content analysis of an Iraqi bridge blogger.  Focusing on Riverbend's posts for August 2003, we illustrate: (a) how her posts could have provided valuable insights into the reception of US initiatives in "nation building" by young, educated Sunnis, and (b) how this information could have shaped public diplomacy to build their engagement in Iraqi politics.  The importance of formal modeling is also discussed as a vehicle for interfacing with automated blog analysis systems in order to test case studies findings against a larger corpus.

Formal analytical modeling of blog content as personal narrative