Politics & Media

A natural disaster, a tragic accident and complaints about Obama’s handling of the media shared attention in a very mixed news week that is somewhat atypical for the blogosphere. On Twitter, stories about Google led a week along with news that the Library of Congress is archiving Tweets.

The race for Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat began largely drama-free and little-covered and ended as the most surprising and intensely-covered political story in the country. Which candidate got the most favorable attention? How did coverage change over time? How did the local Boston papers differ in their reporting? A new study examines newspaper coverage of the race.

For the third straight week, the Obama Administration’s renewed efforts to pass a health care bill topped the news agenda while the U.S. economy followed in the No. 2 slot. Ex-Congressman Eric Massa’s weird cable TV tour also generated attention. And troubled Toyota found itself in the news again, albeit this time with somewhat more  sympathetic coverage.

The latest in a series of reports about the Millennial Generation, from Pew Social and Demo...

Coverage of the President’s prime-time speech and assessments of his stewardship in office dominated the news agenda last week. Meanwhile, news about the economy, events in Haiti and trouble for Toyota filled out the roster of top stories. And attention to one of the week’s top newsmakers varied dramatically on cable news.

Aaron Smith discusses the role the Internet plays in opening civic and political debate to historically underrepresented groups.

A discussion that revolved around the critics of Barack Obama and his policies dominated the blogosphere last week—with the Tea Party protests and Jimmy Carter’s remarks about race as the main catalyst. On YouTube, an exhibition of public rudeness was the most viewed video.

Just as in offline politics, the well-off and well-educated are especially likely to participate in online activities that mirror offline forms of engagement. But there are hints that social media may alter this pattern.

While the mainstream press focused on the health care battle last week, the online conversation centered on sobering survey results for President Obama. Bloggers also jumped into the racially charged “Skip” Gates case. Iran was again the hot Twitter topic and a confrontation between David Beckham and angry soccer fans led on YouTube.

With the political battle over health care legislation intensifying in Washington, that subject generated its highest level of coverage, by far, last week. But a remark by the president at the end of his health care press conference quickly changed the news agenda.