Blogs as a Counter-Conversation

While bloggers love to consider themselves a force of media, often times they
are at least able to keep a story alive while the media decides if they are
going to investigate it or not. Consider the story of uber-bigot Trent Lott.

He made some offhanded remark about racial segregation and went largely un-noticed
for many days… gradually bloggers picked up on his comments and buzz started
to generate a counter-conversation that eventually pushed the story back on
to the stage.

The report does not portray the blogs as lead actor, but as intelligent reactor
to an event of neglect (similar to an act of omission) within professional
newsrooms, where the story of Lott’s remarks languished and nearly died. The
case study is largely about herd thinking in the press, and the illusion that
“news” jumps out at everyone simultaneously.

Read the full report over at NYU’s Press
Think
.


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