AR; Agenda setting revisited

_

A fresh article by Sharon Meraz studies the agenda-setting power of “elite traditional media” (more specifically, the New York Times and the Washington Post) on the blogosphere, through various issues, and distinguishing between right-leaning, moderate and left-leaning independent blogs.

The results confirm what my own tentative research about social news sites hinted at: that traditional media are still very important, an “A-list force” in setting the agenda of citizen media; but the former no longer hold a monopoly over agenda setting.

_

The first step

The first stage of my phd research project concerns the content analysis of social news sites. I use the term “social news site” referring to websites that act as aggregators or filters of content on the internet, built around the idea that the community of users submits various pieces, and selects – through voting – the ones that are the most worthy of attention. (Examples include Digg and Newsvine.)

There are two basic entry points to examine the relations between the public sphere and social news sites. First, social news sites seem interesting because they accommodate public discussion – and, by the nature of this discussion (ie. it takes place in writing, and it creates its own archives (=is documentated instantly)), it is technically feasible to retrieve and analyze this discussion. What is it about, is it reasoned, critical argumentation, or just shouting abuse at one another? How do participants cope with the fact that they argue with total strangers, hiding behind screen names? (Does this anonymity actually help the conversation?) I plan to study this problem in the second part of the research project.

Second, social news sites are peculiar because they also provide the material about which discussion takes place (at least on the surface); notably, the articles themselves. Social news sites are, well, news sites (even if they only process previously released material). In this sense, they are part of the media. The question here is how they compare to organs of the established, mainstream media.