Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Debate Growth of Government

September 9, 2010

Last week, politics was the overriding theme in the blogosphere.

Several controversies -- including the growth of anti-poverty programs, what liberals think of conservatives and the nature of President Obama's opposition -- stirred up divisive online conversation.

Heated commentary and even inflammatory accusations ensued from both sides of the political spectrum and often seemed to result in the ideological foes talking past each other.

For the week of Aug. 30-Sept. 3, almost a third (32%) of the news links on blogs linked to a USA Today article reporting that one-in-six (and rising) Americans are on government assistance programs like Medicare. That made it the week's No. 1 subject in the blogosphere, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The majority of bloggers who discussed the story saw it as a strong indication that the economy is in terrible shape and blamed President Obama for the growth of public dependence on government.

A few bloggers, however, saw it as an indictment of the private sector and called for more attention to the challenges of assisting those in need.

Despite the mainstream press' continued focus on the economy, the subject had not been of great interest to bloggers. Last week was the first time since June 14-18 that an economy-related topic led the blogs. That week, the focus was on Obama's request for $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments. Indeed, last week marked just the fourth time in 2010 that an economy-focused subject was among the top three stories in the blogosphere.

Two of the other top stories last week were pure politics -- and heated politics at that.

The No. 3 subject, at 13%, was a column by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer declaring that liberalism is under siege because liberal elites throw charges of bigotry against the majority of Americans who disagree with them.

The fourth subject, at 11%, was the Aug. 28 Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., led by talk show host Glenn Beck. The same topic was the fourth largest topic the previous week leading up to the event.

These two subjects combined to trigger an angry debate about the opponents of Obama and the makeup of the Tea Party rallies. Conservatives argued that Obama and the Democrats are dismissive ideologues, ignoring the desires of the country in order to push a radical agenda. Liberals countered that the Tea Parties are made up of ill-informed conservatives who are afraid of minorities.

The other two stories that ranked among the top subjects on blogs last week had political components as well.

The second-largest story, at 14%, was the Sept. 1 hostage situation at the headquarters of the Discovery Channel outside of Washington, D.C. The culprit, James Lee, was killed during the incident although no bystanders were harmed. Much of the attention to this story was led by bloggers who labeled Lee an "eco-terrorist" and complained that the mainstream press was not accurately portraying his radical motives.

The fifth story, at 6%, was a Los Angeles Times article suggesting that if a large anti-incumbent wave occurs in the upcoming November elections that favors Republicans, it might also mean that large numbers of women in Congress would be replaced by men.

On the social networking site Twitter, the top two subjects were technology-related, which is often the case for a platform that is often used to both announce and evaluate new advances in social media and applications.

The No. 1 subject, with 24% of the news links from tweets involved Apple's new social network for music called Ping. Available through iTunes, Ping will allow users to follow their friends and favorite artists. Both Mashable and the BBC declared that Ping will be a direct competitor to the well-known social networking site MySpace.

The initial reaction on Twitter was mixed, however, as some users expressed optimism about the network's potential while others thought the design had some fundamental flaws.

"Playing with ping.fm," tweeted Bob Belderbos. "A great tool to update multiple soc. network apps (e.g. when you release a blog post)."

"I really like the iTunes 10 hybrid list/album view. However, I don't see myself actively ever using Ping," shared Jason Lake.

The second topic, at 9%, was the newest product from Skype called Skype Connect which is aimed at making their phone calling technology more useable for businesses.

The next three topics, however, were wide-ranging -- involving climate change, the commander in chief and cultural habits.

A Guardian report that Bjørn Lomborg, one of the world's best known climate change skeptics, has reversed his position and now declares climate change to be one of the chief concerns facing the planet, was third at 5%.

A story about President Obama's interview with NBC's Brian Williams where he discussed the Gulf oil spill, the recovery after Katrina and the Glenn Beck rally was fourth at 5%. That was followed (also at 5%) by a BBC story about a study showing that last year, alcohol consumption in the UK saw its sharpest year-to-year decline since 1948.

Continue reading the full report at journalism.org.

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