Taking a Side-by-Side Look at Traditional and Social Media

By Molly Joss

On May 23, 2010 the Pew Research Center’s

Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)
published an insightful report entitled New
Media: Old Media. The report focuses on
how blogs and social media agendas relate
to and differ from the traditional press. The
information contained in the report is valu-
able information for any publisher seeking
to understand how to make the most of the
mix of traditional and social media. This ar-
ticle includes a few excerpts from the report
and also commentary on the report by blog-
ger and journalist Gina Chen.

The PEJ gathered a year of data on im- The PEJ compared traditional press coverage with news topics that turned up on blogs, Twitter, and
portant news stories discussed and linked YouTube during 2009 and part of 2010.
to on blogs and social media pages and
also analyzed seven months of traffic on these stories on Twitter. The that there is no one-size-fits-all approach when using social media. Of
PEJ also analyzed a year of the most viewed news-related videos on course, publishers should use social media outlets in additional to tradi-
YouTube. The PEJ was seeking to uncover trends related to how so- tional media, but they should not expect the same stories to attract the
cial media and traditional media interact and reflect each other. same attention on each social media outlet.
The report discusses several trends PEJ felt were revealed by the data.
“Most broadly, the stories and issues that gain traction in social media The conclusions reached by the PEJ as a result of its analysis were simple,
differ substantially from those that lead in the mainstream press. But “As social media sites and tools evolve, so too will their impact on news
they also differ greatly from each other. Of the 29 weeks that we tracked information and citizens’ relationship to the news. The interplay among
all three social platforms, blogs, Twitter and YouTube shared the same new and traditional media will also almost certainly evolve. Even now,
top story just once. That was the week of June 15-19, when the protests new partnerships and content sharing are being developed across plat-
that followed the Iranian elections led on all three.” forms and outlets. The Project will continue to follow and study these
emerging tools and trends for producing, consuming and sharing news
The takeaway messages for publishers that the PEJ report provides are information in our society. And the flow will be tracked weekly in PEJ’s
that social media works differently from traditional news outlets and New Media Index (NMI).”

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The NMI analysis posted on June 3, 2010, is emblematic of this interplay,
“The debate over the popular social networking site Facebook and the
issue of privacy rights led a technology-focused week on social media.
On Twitter, more than half of the news links were about Apple, a favorite
Twitter topic. On YouTube, an ad about immigration featuring a frog
puppet received the most views.”

These results are not surprising given the reality that to be involved in
social media in anything other than a cursory way requires an invest-
ment in technology that allows a user to read and post. By contrast, the
most popular stories on the Wall Street Journal and New York Times in-
clude stories about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the turbulence
on Wall Street.

Here are a few of the other report findings we found interesting:

 Of the three social media platforms studied, news-oriented blogs

share the most similarities with the mainstream press. Bloggers
almost always link to legacy outlets for their information, and politics,
government and foreign events garnered the greatest traction.

 In the 49 weeks studied, blogs and the mainstream press shared the
top story just 13 times. The story line shared most was the United
States economic crisis (five weeks in all). Other story lines that drove
attention on both platforms included the initial H1N1 flu outbreak
in late spring, the June protests in Iran, the death of Senator Edward
Kennedy in late August, and the shootings at Fort Hood in early
November.

 On Twitter, the top story was even less likely to be the same as in the
mainstream press–just four of the 29 weeks studied, or less than one
seventh of the time. (Iran, Fort Hood and the NWA terror attempt,
which closed out the year.) All but one of those was also a top story
among the blogs that week.
 Most weeks, however, blogs and Twitter led with different stories
than the mainstream press.
In the broadest sense, the top news agenda in the blogosphere coincides with
that of the traditional press; politics and foreign events are the topic areas
linked to most often. The next most popular subject areas, however, tend to
differ; science stories—often off-beat findings—were the No. 3 subject area
in blogs and social media pages, followed by technology related news. (Those
topics are much less popular in the traditional press).

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Consumers using Twitter focused far more on technology and Web issues than
anything else. There were some instances of using the medium to promote
activism and involvement, but such efforts tended to be episodic and to some
extent, special circumstances.

 The environment on Twitter was less overtly political than blogs.

Instead, it tended to espouse a more inclusive tone of community, a
sense of its users being advocates for one another other and for the
Twitter platform itself.
Publishers and others interested in the mix of new and old media should
download and read the entire PJE report. It is available, at no charge, at
journalism.org. The Seybold Report thanks PJE for granting permission
to quote the report and to use the tables included in this article. TSR
Like both Twitter and blogs, the news agenda on YouTube rarely coincided
with that of the mainstream press. In only eight of the 49 weeks studied was
the top video about the same subject that also led the traditional media. Of
those eight occasions, three of them involved footage of discussing the health
care reform bill (often with contentious opposition), and two of them were
videos about the protests in Iran.

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 Gina Chen’s Take on New Media: Old Media
The Pew Research Center released an interesting study last week
that offers some sobering—if unsurprising—insights for the news
business.
Researchers examined top news stories in the mainstream press as
well as what news got traction on blogs, Twitter and YouTube. A
main finding was that what’s hot on social media differs—a lot—
from what leads in the mainstream press. But what’s even more in-
teresting, I think, is that what’s popular on one form of social me-
dia differs significantly from what’s trendy on another. For example,
Twitter’s domain is technology, not surprisingly. Blogs and the main-
stream press focus more on politics and government. Also not a
shocker. As my kids might say: “No duh.”
But what isn’t so obvious is what this might mean. I’ve written before
about how I believe the real reason many people don’t subscribe to
news online—or in print—is about commitment, not money.
This study crystallizes my thoughts. I suggest these findings illus-
trate the radically different way today’s consumers think of news,
compared with the past. It’s not brand based. It’s not even plat-
form based. It’s based on niche, which many have said before.
But the niche isn’t just in the content or the subject matter; it’s
in the mechanism of transmission.
Modal Switching of Media
In other words, the people formerly known as the audience know
if they want a certain type of information, they head to Twitter.
Another type, they’ll go to YouTube. Something else, that’s what
FourSquare is for.
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It’s likely not a conscious decision—it’s more visceral than that. But
the important point is that the loyalty isn’t to the platform, the
application, the delivery system, or the brand. The loyalty is to
the need for the information. Another Twitter-like service could
spring up tomorrow, and if it fit a niche—or a micro-niche—it could
go great guns. People wouldn’t stay loyal to Twitter because “We’ve
always been on Twitter.” They’d go where they can get what they want.
That’s why social media flourish and then
flounder.
It’s a very different mindset than the one still cherished by some in
the mainstream press. That mindset was built on the idea of brand
loyalty that grew over time as people saw the brand (the newspa-
per) as a symbol of something in their lives. A rite of passage into
adulthood. A sign of respectability.
Media as Tool, Media as Meaning
For example, when I was growing up in the 1970s, my parents sub-
scribed to the New York Daily News to sate my Yankees-obsessed
father’s love for sports coverage. But thesy also took the local daily
for the hometown news. As I grew into adulthood, those papers
were a staple on our kitchen table, which would have seemed oddly
empty without them. The newspapers weren’t just a delivery source
for information.
My children likely won’t ever have that kind of bond with any kind
of media. They’ll replace one platform with another as technology
improves and their interests evolve. They won’t expect any to have
staying power. They’ll instinctively know they are fleeting.
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 Who creates the information, who creates the news may be mean- Gina Chen spent 20 years as a
ingless to them. Worrying about the demise of one online platform newspaper reporter and edi-
will be as odd to them as bemoaning the loss of the rotary-dial tor, most recently blogging and
phone would have been to me. writing about parenting and
children for The Post-Standard
The question is: How do those in the news business deal with this in Syracuse, NY. She recently
reality? That’s a tough one. I can suggest what won’t work. Teaching left that position to pursue a
your staff to use Twitter and Facebook as if these are these are the Ph.D. in communications at the
news tools of the trade, the notebooks and pens of an earlier day, S.I. Newhouse School of Public
won’t cut it. By the time the news professionals get proficient in one Communications at Syracuse
platform, the rules and the platforms will change. As I tell my intro- University with plans to teach
ductory journalism students, my goal isn’t to teach you how to use at the university level. She blogs
social media for reporting; it’s to teach you how to be able to spot about the future of journal-
the next smart app that comes down the pike. ism at savethemedia.com. This
post appeared on the Nieman
The key is to be fluid and to realize that readers want relationships Journalism Lab site and on savethemedia on June 3, 2010. The
with people, not brands. That targeting audiences won’t work. You Seybold Report thanks Chen for her permission to use the post
must target your content to the right platform at the right time and in this report.
be ready to change in a moment’s notice. In short, the goal is to
become like the news consumers you are trying to reach. TSR

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