Project for Excellence in Journalism

Social Media Float in Thin Air

Global Warming and Balloon Boy Take Up Online Talk

October 22, 2009

Two stories gripped the social media last week unlike any other in the past few months. An article questioning the theory of global warming dominated the conversation on blogs while the saga of the six-year-old who came to be known as "balloon boy" did the same for Twitter users.

For the week of Oct. 12-16, 50% of the links to news-related stories from blogs were to one BBC report about global warming, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That equaled the fourth-largest total for any story this year, and represented the most attention to a subject since the political unrest in Iran made up 63% of the links the week of June 15-19.

The Oct. 9 BBC story, headlined "What Happened to Global Warming?" noted that global temperatures had not increased over the last 11 years and quoted several scientists who claimed that man-made climate change is not occurring. The blogosphere was dominated by those who cited the story as evidence to support their skepticism about global warming and criticized those warning of the dangers of rising temperatures.

The second-largest story in blogs was the same story that led among Twitter users and was also among the top subjects in the mainstream press as well. The tale of the free-floating balloon thought to be carrying six-year-old Falcon Heene -- an event carried live on cable news the afternoon of Oct. 15 -- made up 10% of the news links on blogs.

Bloggers' reactions tracked with those of many observers who at first feared for the safety of the boy, only to be upset when subsequent reports claimed the episode had been a hoax. A few bloggers began to suspect the scene was not as it appeared even before authorities made such claims while some criticized the media for overplaying the story.

On Twitter last week, the balloon boy story overwhelmed all other subjects as users monitored developments in real-time. According to the tracking site Tweetmeme, fully 55% of the Twitter links to news stories were about that subject,¹ making it the most dominant story since the post-election protests in Iran made up 96% of the links the week of June 15-19.

In the mainstream media last week, the balloon drama was the No. 3 story at 8% of the newshole measured by PEJ's News Coverage Index. But in the period from Oct. 15 through Oct. 18, it was the top story at 19% of the newshole.

The other top subjects in the blogosphere last week included the death of legendary professional wrestling figure Captain Lou Albano, the No. 3 story with 7% of the links. Fourth, at 5%, was the story of 16-year-old Babar Ali of West Bengal, nicknamed the "youngest headmaster in the world," because he shares lessons he learns in school with poor children from his village. And fifth, at 4%, was a story suggesting that the users of the social networking site Facebook tend to be more affluent than those on MySpace.

Most of the top stories on Twitter other than the balloon drama were focused on technology. Various stories about Apple, including rumors of the production of new Macs, were second at 12%. Right behind that, at 11%, was news that Finland was the first country to declare that broadband internet access was a legal right, while the fourth-largest story (6%) was about an outage to Facebook that affected about 150,000 users.

The No. 5 story (3%) was a CNN report about a justice of the peace in Louisiana who sparked outrage when he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.

Balloon Boy

As the balloon believed to be carrying six-year-old Falcon Heene was still floating across the Colorado sky on Oct. 15, Twitter users were already voicing concern.

"poor little boy! i hope they find him well & alive," wrote Manda Clark.*

"Hope the Balloon Boy just let the balloon fly away (without getting in) and comes home soon," seconded Mallika Chopra.

After the boy was discovered hiding in his house rather than in the balloon, a number of people expressed relief, along with some doubts that maybe the story was a bit fishy.

"Wow, the Balloon Boy was found in his attic ... in a box? What does that mean? Was he hiding or was he put there? Weird," wrote Morning Toast.

A number of bloggers also followed the situation closely, expressing similar sentiments as those posting on Twitter. And once the dust settled, and the boy was found unharmed, some began putting together pieces of the puzzle.

"Not to jump to conclusions here, but could this whole thing have been a hoax?" posited Brett Singer at Stroller Derby. "The Heene family is all over YouTube, having appeared on the 100th episode of the ABC show ‘Wife Swap.' They also are storm-chasers and self-described ‘science detectives' ... you can watch some of their kooky videos on FameCrawler ... Dad says it wasn't a hoax, and so far the local authorities are saying the same thing, according to various sources. To quote Dana Carvey's impression of Johnny Carson, this is weird, wild stuff."

Several bloggers highlighted a clip from an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer when Falcon Heene said to his parents, "You guys said we did this for the show." And for many, the real story was the role the media played in the affair.

"CNN was the first to break the story, originally declaring that the helium balloon, floating high above Colorado, had a child inside," stated Jess at Jess & Josh. "This is what sparked the maelstrom of national attention. A 6 year old helpless and trapped in a balloon that could crash at any moment? This is cable news' dream."

"What's striking me as a bit inappropriate is the constant news coverage that has continued the last 24 hours since he has been found," wrote Tasha at Brown Miller Communications, Inc. "Stories from his disappearance being a hoax to the child getting sick on live TV. News is important and should be informative, keeping the public aware of what is happening. But when does news cross the point and become pointless and unnecessary?"

Global Warming

Many of those who have been skeptical about the existence and dangers of global warming viewed the Oct. 9 BBC report raising questions about climate change as vindication.

"I always knew that man-made global warming was a scam -- and now the truth is out. For the last 11 years there has been no increase in global temperatures at all. In fact, the warmest year recorded globally was back in 1998!" declared The Sovereign Life Blog. "I don't want to go into why it's a scam ... suffice to say that the politicisation of this issue was the vital clue to the nature of the ‘beast'."

"I can't believe that any rational intelligent person can still believe in Global warming," wrote Alaphiah at Creating Orwellian World-View. "The proponents of this fallacy even changed the name of Global warming to Climate Change to obfuscate the fact that the Earth really wasn't warming and the Carbon induced warming which they original claimed would destroy the world was all based on false science."

"Could it possibly be that the phenomenon never existed anywhere but in the minds of deranged liberals like Al Gore?" asked Seaspook. "Or could it be these liberals while still deranged knew it was a bunch of crap all along and were using it as a political tool?"

While skeptics dominated the commentary, a few supporters of global warming science questioned the evidence in the story.

"The globe is warming, still," responded Rap at Prose and Doggerel. "The idiot who wrote the BBC story, the idiots who are quoted in the story, that idiot Matt Drudge, they all have no idea how to analyze systems that fluctuate. They should all take Statistics 101."

"The BBC should know better," added Bob Cesca. "It's [the article] based around a global warming myth that has been repeatedly debunked ... the BBC article uses the flagrantly disingenuous argument that global warming ended in 1998 -- the ‘warmest year on record.' Real climate scientists agree that it was the second warmest only because of El Nino activity. Besides, climate trends are measured in terms of decades and the current warming trend exceeds anything in recorded history ... I'm constantly amazed at the right's ability to deliberately deceive its own people."

For more on the New Media Index, including the week’s top YouTube videos and methodology, see journalism.org.

_{1. Due to a technical error, Twitter links from October 12 are not included in this week's sample.}

_{*For the sake of authenticity, PEJ has a policy of not correcting misspellings or grammatical errors that appear in direct quotes from blog postings.}