Study Finds Different Agendas Between New, Old Media
May 24, 2010
| 1:31 PM
A new report released Monday examining what news is covered by new media and traditional news outlets found that blogs, social media sites and YouTube generally differ on what issues and stories gain traction compared with the mainstream media.
The study released by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found blogs shared the same lead story with traditional media sources such as newspapers and broadcast news outlets in just 13 of the 49 weeks covered, while YouTube stories overlapped on just eight of the 49 weeks and the top stories on Twitter aligned with traditional news outlets in just four of the total weeks covered.
Despite this, the study found blogs in particular still relied on traditional news sources such as newspapers and broadcast news outlets for their information. More than 99 percent of the stories linked to on blogs came from traditional news sources, with 80 percent of such links coming from the news sites of the BBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington post. Twitter was less tied to traditional media, with only 50 percent of Tweets linked to "legacy" outlets.
While new media still rely on old media for information, the study found the mainstream news outlets didn't "follow new media's agenda," according to a news release from the center. The center found only one story, the controversy related to e-mails from climate change researchers, that was a major story first on the blogs before it later gained more attention from tradition media.
"As social media sites and tools continue to evolve, so too will the interplay among new and traditional outlets and citizens' relationship to the news," Amy Mitchell, the center's deputy director, said.
The study found the three types of new media also differed among themselves as far as their news focus. The study found blogs, which tended to be evenly split among conservative and liberal voices, "gravitated toward stories that elicited emotion, concerned individual or group rights or triggered ideological passion," the center said. Twitter posts tended to focus on passing on important information, while "YouTube users engage not through comments but through selection and sharing" of videos, according to the center.
The center studied the news linked to on millions of blogs and social media pages tracked by Icerocket and Technorati for about a year starting in Jan. 19, 2009 and ending on Jan. 15, 2010, and also studied YouTube's news channel videos during the same period. It examined news stories linked to in Tweets and monitored by Tweetsmeme from June 15, 2009 through Jan. 15, 2010.
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