Nate Silver- Two interesting charts on Media attention to OWS

[chill_wind]

TPM had a strange story a few days ago about American interest in the OWS events. Strange, in that it was based on citing a recent Pew poll on the "level of interest" and seemed to buy into uncritically the notion of the poll results, as opposed to asking anything more about the actual nature of the media driven end of things. TPM asserts:

Even Democrats, which polling released on Wednesday showed are more likely to support the protests, are not particularly interested in news coverage on it. A look back at Pew's data shows that there is currently much less interest in Occupy Wall Street than there was in the start of the modern Tea Party movement. From Pew:

In mid-April 2009, news about early Tea Party protests made up 7% of news coverage, identical to the amount of coverage devoted to the anti-Wall Street protests over the past week. But public interest today is significantly lower than it was in 2009 - just 17% say they are following the current protests very closely, compared with 27% who followed early Tea Party protests very closely.

The attention to the early Tea Party protests came largely from Republicans, fully 43% of whom tracked the story very closely in April 2009. Fewer than half as many Democrats (18%) were equally engaged with the story. Today, however, there is no such disparity, with limited interest in the Occupy Wall Street protests from Republicans (12%), Democrats (17%) and independents (19%) alike. However, when asked what one story they followed most closely, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to cite the protest news (11% vs. 3%).

Pew: More Americans Interested In Amanda Knox Than Occupy Wall Street
Kyle Leighton | October 13, 2011

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/pew-more-americans-interested-in-amanda-knox-than-occupy-wall-street.php

Since the poll itself seems to be about televised media interest, TPM doesn't mention anything in its piece about the enormous American interest, in reality, via the internet. Still, what's up with that, TPM?

But about that media driven coverage:

Nate Silver's tracks the pattern of the ebbs and spikes in media coverage over 21 days of protests and also compares media's coverage of the Tea-Partiers and OWS. See his discussion about all of this in more detail here:


October 7, 2011, 3:31 pm
Police Clashes Spur Coverage of Wall Street Protests
By NATE SILVER

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/police-clashes-spur-coverage-of-wall-street-protests/




"Still, the volume of news coverage has tended to grow in a punctuated way rather than a smooth and linear fashion, having increased after each confrontation with the police."




It's an interesting piece. On this past Saturday, when the OWS protests were presumably at their largest height globally so far, with as many as a half a million people estimated in Madrid by some reports, WAPO, as example, covered the global news of the protests, but it was hard to overlook that the picture they chose for their headline was not Madrid. Not NYC. Or scores of other American cities with seas of crowd masses as far as the eye could see: No- it was a solitary protester prominently portrayed in the foreground (with a few in the distance) against a background in flames. (Rome)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/occupy-wall-street-protests-go-global/2011/10/15/gIQAp7kimL_story.html

Someone in the comments section at the Nate Silver article observed this:

Instead of "police clashes" I think that police overreaction /misconduct would be a better title.

I think that's a useful observation, too.

[msongs]

1. tea baggers (ie republicans) have their own TV network, no wonder they got more interest nt

[tularetom]

3. They have several networks

Including Fox, CNN, CNBC, the 3 broadcast networks and most of MSNBC.

At this point I really can't tell the difference between fox and cnn.

[chill_wind]

4. No, it's no wonder, but

it's a bit of surprise that TPM (one of our "liberal" leaning news sources) didn't feel a need to elaborate on that a little.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Yes, Rome took over even our local coverage. I was interviewed for the 'local' (not really, it's

state-wide) paper. We had somewhere between 300 and 400 people march. Sunday's paper gave a half column front page and 2 more columns inside story with one tiny picture. Big picture of Rome.

[chill_wind]

8. I've been trying to find a cached page of Newseum front pages

from the weekend. I looked at the Newseum site late Saturday night. A few of the biggest papers had pics, but multiple split column headlines and many had nothing. I don't know if Newseum's Sunday front page looked any better or not.

ETA-- congrats on your interview!

[Speck Tater]

5. That second graph really tells the story.

Tea party - Quick growth early, tapering off to flat.
OWS - Low growth at first, growing exponentially.

The future of both is clear from these two trend lines. The Tea party is past it's prime and OWS is barely getting warmed up for major growth.

[chill_wind]

9. You are right.

Tea baggers are old news.

And there seems to be good reason for lots more optimism about the future of growing attention to OWS. So far. It has trended a lot since September.

According to Pew's PEJ site:

The economy reclaimed its perch at the top of the news agenda as the No. 1 story last week, largely driven by dramatically increasing media attention to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

Overall economic coverage accounted for 22% of the newshole from October 3-9, up from 14% the week before (when it was No. 2), according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The protests largely aimed at Wall Street constituted the largest single thread in that coverage, making up about one-third of the economic storyline. That amounted to roughly 7% of the overall newshole, or nearly four times the amount of protest coverage from the week before.

By contrast, though - OWS will have to compete hard with the 2012 campaign. The media's top very favorite most "horserace" thing. Even though we're a whole frickin year out yet. So that's only going to grow and grow.

Last week was also the biggest yet for 2012 campaign coverage, at 18% of the newshole. That subject generated the most attention on cable TV, accounting for 34% of the airtime studied. For the past month, the campaign, at 14% of the newshole, has been the No. 2 story behind the economy—suggesting the media have entered a new phase of the election cycle in which the presidential race is a weekly priority.

http://www.journalism.org/index_report/pej_news_coverage_index_october_39_2011

[meow2u3]

14. The first graph is pretty telling, too

OWS becomes exponentially more popular with every instance of police misconduct, bullying, brutality, and/or entrapment (the Brooklyn Bridge case) against, and mass arrests of, protesters. The more oppressive the cops get with the demonstrators, the more people support and/or join the cause, and the more people who join, the more desperate the powers that be and the cops get. Nothing gets as ugly as the actions of desperate bullies.

Cops have this entrenched tribal mentality called Blue Wall of Silence, a set of unwritten rules that contradict the oath and code of ethics required of every police officer and instead fosters an ingrained culture of police corruption. In other words, cop culture is no better than the structures of organized crime, only more dangerous because they have the authority of a badges and guns. In their minds, they're the good guys and the public, criminal or not, are the enemy.

[Magoo48]

6. Yet, the foundation being cemented now by OWS has more steel and a deeper footing than the baggers

Baggers puny stand will ever have. Any Bag-shack will crumble as soon as the political sands shift a little, which of course they will. No telling yet what will rise over the OWS foundation, if anything; but if some structure does emerge, it wiill be stronger for the time spent on design as well as the tried and true materials that are at this moment in time being lovingly incorporrated into OWS's sturdy base.

[chill_wind]

10. I love what you said

and how you said it.

:hi:

[Doctor_J]

7. The Tea Baggers are a media concoction (Rick Santelli, then all of Big Media)

so of course it received huge, favorable coverage. OWS is anti-corporation, including Big Media, so it won't be covered at all.

[starroute]

11. I suspect OWS may be getting more local newspaper and tv coverage

My sample may be biased because I follow Occupy Philadelphia and Occupy Allentown on Facebook, and both of those have been posting local news stories about themselves. But the impression I get is that the protests are being treated as a "hometown" story in a way that the Tea Parties never were.

That's part of the advantage of being a genuine grassroots movement, of course. But I think it may also give OWS more staying power, even if the national attention dies down.

[chill_wind]

12. An encouraging thought and makes sense.

So much we don't know yet. I hadn't thought of that.

[chill_wind]

13. Another graph that tells an important part of the story.

Audience

People are spending more time with news than ever before, according to Pew Research Center survey data, but when it comes to the platform of choice, the web is gaining ground rapidly while other sectors are losing. In 2010, digital was the only media sector seeing audience growth. And cable news joined the ranks of older media suffering audience decline.


http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/overview-2/key-findings/

[FrenchieCat]

15. I think calling Occupy Wall Street by its acronym has not been a good move.....

Too many have no idea what OWS even means.....
but they certainly understand Occupy Wall Street.

Why was it that this movement needed an acronym right away,
before everyday Americans really got the chance to think of the
implication of the name? :shrug:

[RainDog]

16. I think people who support OWS are not getting their news from traditional media

or, rather, they're seeing links to traditional media but are getting news directly from Occupy sites or internet news outlets.

tv is the landline of the 2010s. more and more people are going without.