Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
For much of the week, news of an email scam that compromised thousands of passwords animated the blogosphere. Late in the week, however, the focus shifted abruptly to Barack Obama’s surprising Nobel Peace Prize. On YouTube, meanwhile, a Letterman mea culpa drew the most hits.
The internet is not changing the basic socio-economic character of Americans’ civic engagement. The well off and well educated dominate online civic activities such as emailing officials, making donations, or signing online petitions just as those…
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. […]
Introduction Like many technical innovations, the internet was greeted enthusiastically by those who thought it would “change everything” when it comes to democratic governance. Among its predicted salutary effects is the capacity of the internet to permit ordinary citizens to short-circuit political elites and deal directly with one another and public officials; to foster deliberation, […]
Two subjects that didn’t generate much attention in the mainstream press last week remained hot topics in social media. The saga of six-year-old Falcon Heene and the phony balloon flight continued to provoke outrage in the blogosphere while a warning from the British Prime Minister triggered another debate over global warming.
Two different topics grabbed the attention of social media last week to an extent rarely seen in the New Media Index. On blogs, a BBC report questioning global warming triggered a mostly enthusiastic response while the strange saga of “balloon boy” led on Twitter. On YouTube, a speech by a pop singer at a political rally was the most viewed video.