Briefs

Below you'll find a graph or two on some of the stuff I'm reading this week, none of it (unfortunately) directly tied to what people know, but all of it kinda interesting.


A Theory of Public Attention

While I've not read this as deeply as I should, at first glance this discussion of a theory of public attention is ripe with potential for those interested in our wild new media marketplace and the competition for public attention.  The more I think about this, the more important it seems, though the piece here doesn't really help me in terms of theoretical predictions.  I probably need to read it again.

 The Jena Six

Many of us remember this Louisiana case, and this study attempts to gauge the roles of race and ideology in how people responded to protests about the case.  News coverage plays a significant role as well.  It's hardly surprising, as the paper notes, that politics and race are vital to how people structured their responses.

Social Networking and Cross-Cutting Information

Cross-cutting information is academicspeak for exposure to information that disagrees with your particular point of view.  This study looks at SNS (social networking sites) and finds they lead to more exposure to "challenging viewpoints."  That's a good thing, particularly in a fragmenting media that often leads to people attending to news that confirms their own predispositions.  Strongly encouraged for those with an interest in either cross-cutting info or SNS.