Study Measures the Chatter of the News Cycle

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For the most part, the traditional news outlets lead and the blogs follow, typically by 2.5 hours, according to a new computer analysis of news articles and commentary on the Web during the last three months of the 2008 presidential campaign.

The finding was one of several in a study that Internet experts say is the first time the Web has been used to track — and try to measure — the news cycle, the process by which information becomes news, competes for attention and fades.

Researchers at Cornell, using powerful computers and clever algorithms, studied the news cycle by looking for repeated phrases and tracking their appearances on 1.6 million mainstream media sites and blogs. Some 90 million articles and blog posts, which appeared from August through October, were scrutinized with their phrase-finding software.

Frequently repeated short phrases, according to the researchers, are the equivalent of “genetic signatures” for ideas, or memes, and story lines. The biggest text-snippet surge in the study was generated by “lipstick on a pig.” That originated in Barack Obama’s colorful put-down of the claim by Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin that they were the genuine voices for change in the campaign. Associates of Mr. McCain suggested that the remark was meant as an insult to Ms. Palin.

The researchers’ data points to an evolving model of news media. While most news flowed from the traditional media to the blogs, the study found that 3.5 percent of story lines originated in the blogs and later made their way to traditional media. For example, when Mr. Obama said that the question of when life begins after conception was “above my pay grade,” the remark was first reported extensively in blogs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/technology/internet/13influence.html?th&emc=th