Last week, Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society launched Media Cloud, an intriguing tool that could help researches and others understand how stories spread through mainstream media and blogs.
According to Nieman Journalism Lab:
–When [News Source Y] writes about Sarah Palin [or Pakistan, or school vouchers], what’s the context of their discussion? What are the words and phrases they surround that topic with?”
The obvious use of this project is to compare coverage by different types of media. But I think a deeper purpose may be served here: By tracking patterns of words used in news stories and blog posts, Media Cloud may illuminate how context and influence shape public understanding — in other words, how media and news affect people and communities.
This is important, because news and the media do not exist for their own sake. It seems to me that the more we learn about how people affect — and are affected — by the media, the better we’ll be able to craft effective media for the future.
