Understanding the Participatory News Consumer
How internet and cell phone users have turned news into a social experience.
With the White House producing a post-mortem on what went wrong, the Christmas bombing plot led the news agenda last week. And it was joined by a number of related terrorism topics in the news, harkening back to the days of nervous post 9/11 headlines.
Introduction Americans’ relationship with news is changing in dramatic and irreversible ways due to changes in the “ecology” of how news is available. Traditional news organizations are still very important to their consumers, but technology has scrambled every aspect of the relationship between news producers and the people who consume news. That change starts with […]
Following an interview with one of the leading scientists in the so-called “Climate-gate” controversy, bloggers engaged in a passionate exchange over the merits of climate change science. On Twitter, an airline’s treatment of an overweight celebrity was the top story. And on YouTube, the tragic death of an Olympic luger was a leading driver of traffic.
Charges against U.S. servicemen who captured one of the most wanted men in Iraq drew major attention from the blogosphere last week. A controversial singer was the hottest topic on Twitter. And a YouTube video intended to paint an unflattering portrait of Sarah Palin supporters was viewed more than 1 million times.
European campaigns to ban burqas, the Swiss vote to bar new construction of minarets and attempted terrorist acts in the United States have renewed questions and concerns about the compatibility of Islam with Western society. Swiss-born scholar and philosopher of Islam Tariq Ramadan has written and spoken on the subject, generating widespread debate and reaction. […]
Free versus pay? When it comes to music, bloggers last week strongly championed free. On Twitter, strong views over privacy issues surfaced when Google released its new social networking feature, Google Buzz. And a conversation between Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly attracted over a million views on YouTube.
An anti-abortion ad run during the Super Bowl and opposition to gay rights were the most popular subjects on social media last week. On YouTube, Apple’s iPad dominated all five of the most-viewed news videos.