Project for Excellence in Journalism

Egypt Uprisings Slow to Register on Blogs, Twitter

February 3, 2011

Last week was one of those that highlighted the divergent news agendas of the mainstream and online media. While two stories -- unrest in the Middle East and President Obama's State of the Union address -- dominated coverage in the traditional press, bloggers and Twitter users opted for very different topics.

In the blogosphere, the No. 1 linked-to story from Jan. 24-28 was Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' failure to report his wife's earnings over a five-year period, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Drawing 14% of the links, bloggers were highly critical of Thomas, accusing him of a double standard after the watchdog group Common Cause charged that he had failed to report his wife's earnings of $680,000 from the conservative Heritage Foundation. Even though Thomas later admitted the error and amended his financial statements, critics took joy in needling the controversial judge.

Another major story, with 11% of the links, involved U.S. economics. Most of the attention focused on a Washington Post report claiming Obama was unlikely to support his deficit commission's controversial proposals regarding Social Security -- such as raising the retirement age or reducing the program's benefits. Bloggers gave more of a mixed verdict here. Many supported Obama's view for both political and policy reasons. Others, however, criticized Obama for being unwilling to take important steps to secure the country's economic future.

Also at 11% was a Los Angeles Times story about two teenagers found dead in an apartment alongside an empty can of the caffeinated alcohol drink known as Four Loko, which has been banned in some states. Although it was not immediately clear if the drink was the cause of the deaths, concerns about its safety were enough to raise questions about the role it may have played.

At No. 4, with 10%, was a BBC story about a polar bear that swam for more than nine days in search of sea ice. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey suggested that this journey provided more evidence of global climate change.

The fifth story (at 9%), was another BBC report, this one about the firing of British sports announcer Andy Gray as the result of allegations of sexist and improper behavior.

The turmoil in Egypt did not register as a major social media topic in the sample studied by PEJ last week. It did, however, rank as the seventh-biggest story among users of Twitter, a platform that has been extensively used to share information about such events as the 2009 protests in Iran and the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Despite attempts by the Egyptian government to block access to Twitter within their country, users posted images, links, and other pieces of information about the uprising from the outside. In the blogosphere, interest in the situation in Egypt seemed to pick up by the weekend, a period not included in this report.

Other stories linked-to on Twitter last week involved the web and technology, including disagreement over the value of news and information online.

Read the full report at journalism.org.