New Media Index: Bloggers Focus on 2011 Budget, Tweeters Talk Facebook
Bloggers were very budget-conscious during the week of Feb. 28-March 4, while Twitter users were focused on that other social-networking site, Facebook, and the most-watched news and politics video on YouTube was TV New Zealand footage of the aftermath of the Feb. 21 earthquake in Christchurch, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism New Media Index.
News links about the budget accounted for 37 percent of those shared via the blogosphere, followed by: a tie for second place between the death of the last remaining American World War I veteran, Frank W. Buckles, and Fox News Channel’s suspensions of contributors Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum because both were considering runs for the presidency in 2012, each at 10 percent; and another tie, at 7 percent, between a call by House Democrats for Republican leaders to investigate a Washington, D.C.-based law firm and three technology contractors, and the Supreme Court ruling protecting the First Amendment right of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church to conduct anti-gay protests at military funerals.
Facebook accounted for 19 percent of Tweeted news links, followed by: Apple at 17 percent; the Academy Awards at 10 percent; the unrest in Libya, also at 10 percent; and stories about a March 22 event where Samsung will likely announce the new version of its Galaxy Tab tablet, at 6 percent.
The footage of the tragedy in Christchurch was followed on the list of most-viewed news and politics videos on YouTube by: an interview about the Westboro Baptist Church from syndicated talk program The David Pakman Show; audio of a prank phone call to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker by The Buffalo Beast’s Ian Murphy, posing as conservative activist David Koch; Russia Today footage of the New Zealand earthquake; and a first-person video of the quake.
