Coverage of gay marriage continues to
dominate the conversation online but is being roundly ignored by
traditional offline media sources, according to newly released New
Media Index figures by the Pew Research Center's Project for
Excellence in Journalism.
The index found that gay marriage was
the number 1 story being discussed online during the week of May 25
to 29. The California Supreme Court's ruling last week upholding the
constitutionality of a gay marriage ban amassed a whopping 35% of all
linked-to stories by bloggers and social media
But traditional media brushed off the
gay marriage debate, devoting 24% of its newshole to President
Obama's nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor instead,
and short changing the gay marriage issue with only 5% of their
coverage.
“That disparity in coverage
illustrates a basic difference between the traditional media's more
hierarchical structure and the online world's self-motivating
communities of interest,” researchers said in reporting their
findings.
Interest in gay marriage has dominated
the blogosphere over the past two months – coming in first or
second place each week – starting with the trifecta win of Iowa,
Vermont and the District of Columbia in early April.