Case Study: Did Bloggers Contribute to the Downfall of Trent Lott? (.pdf)
A long time ago, someone asked me to look into whether bloggers actually contributed to the downfall of Mississippi Senator Trent Lott or whether that was just an Internet rumor. Here’s a case study from Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy about the situation. The premise of the study is that while the media did not make a big deal out of remarks Lott made at South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party in December 2002, bloggers kept discussing his remarks, their racist connotation, and the media’s silence about them during the days after the party, eventually getting the attention of some major media outlets.
Thanks for the pointer, Dave.
