The Diminished role of Blogs in News Framing?

Recently we have read a journal article by Henry Farrell and Daniel W. Drezner tilted, “The Power and Politics of Blogs”. The findings in this article suggest that elite bloggers influence news framing by becoming a focal point of reference to the main stream media. Although what we did not discuss in class is the findings in this entry are not conclusive, they are only a beginning of future research in the photosphere.

“However, even if the blogosphere can influence the body politic, the extent of that influence remains open to question.”

This is what I was worried about the entire class period. The discussion we had seemed to lead us to assume that the influence from blogs was there when really the evidence can do no more than suggest an influence.

What I was most concerned about was the small amount of actual references the main stream media made towards blogs “between September 2003 and January 2004” when there survey took place. What the data showed was that in the span of 5 months the major blogs mentioned were mentioned very few time s one which was mentioned 78 times but this one was truly an out liner for the rest ranged from 1-16 mentions. My point is that these are the top read blogs yet they are mentioned very few times within the span of five months. Although I could not find data on the most highly referenced source for political information of the mainstream media, it does seem rather miniscule that the media would only reference the top read blog with an outlier at 78 mentions in 5 months in the presents of a 24 hour news cycle.

Another concern I had with this article is the wording that a certain survey finding had:

“Of those who used blogs, 55% reported that they use them to support the work that they
do in writing news.”

My problem is with the word “support”, it leads me to question whether the blog was really influential news framing, or the journalist had already developed a frame for the news and used the blog solely for support; in which case the role of the blog in news framing is diminished.

The New Conservatism: Don’t Bother With College

The New York Times reported on Rick Santorum’s recent campaigning leading up to the primary coming up this Tuesday.  The article is entitled “The New Conservatism: Don’t Bother With College.”  The tag line of the article says, “Mr. Santorum called President Obama “a snob” for urging students to go to college.”  The article reports that Rick Santorum criticized President Obama’s recent encouragement of students to attend community colleges to pick up specialized skills, for everyone to strive for some form of higher education, and to make college more affordable for everyone. 

My favorite lines of the article states that “As it turns out, Mr. Santorum is concerned that conservative students who attend a four-year college will emerge fully indoctrinated as liberals. He even called colleges “indoctrination mills.” “Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college,” Mr. Santorum said. “He wants to remake you in his image.”

“Mr. Santorum apparently sees students as easy prey to bearded professors and their dangerous ideas, but all ideas are subject to challenge in college. Some students may emerge more liberal, others more libertarian or conservative; some may lose their faith, or adopt a different one.”

“When his brand of ideas is put to the test, Mr. Santorum seems worried it might not hold up. If this new rant represents the current quality of conservative thinking, he is right to be worried.”

The New York Times does a great job reporting on the subject.  They let Rick Santorum’s word speak for themselves.  Our recent class discussions on socialization and political ideals leads me to see how wrong Rick Santorum is in his assumption that students can be so easily preyed upon when receiving a college education.  As we learned from the Michigan Model our socialization starts early in life with the economic structure, social divisions, and historic pattern we grow up with.  Over time these leads to our group loyalties and value orientations.  Our college years can be formative and can be time that values and beliefs shift and new perspectives can be learned but for student to lose their faith, values, and beliefs that they grew up with is not very likely.  

Titles Matter, but Material Matters More...

Sifting through the news on CNN's homepage I came across this story, which reads "Obama responds to Santorum's 'snob' jab?" http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/27/obama-responds-to-santorums-snob-jab/

First off a few things really confuse me about why this is important.  Name-calling happens all the time in politics and it is one of those things that when it happens people really aren't surprised by.  When Rick Santorum called President Obama a snob I'm sure he wasn't expecting people to still be talking about that comment.  Let's face it CNN candidates trade verbal jabs all the time so this isn't "news" to us.  It's just repetitive and it really doesn’t give anything to the audience.  Even though I really don’t like this article I can deal with it because at least if the President is retorting that maybe adds something new to this debate also, the underlying topic is about something important-higher education.  From the media perspective the true story should be about President Obama’s commitment to higher education and desire to see people educated in the best way for them.  If you strip away the rhetoric and focus on the issue you’ll see that is hidden underneath is a very important topic.  Maybe starting out focusing on education will show that the media is above the typical partisan rhetoric and will actually focus on issues at hand.