Blogging competition reproduced 1830s penny-press dynamics favoring lurid content

Evidence

Not that it was all wine and roses for the bloggers who did persist and claw their way up to being full-blooded attention merchants. Like the New York newspapers of the 1830s, they would find themselves in ever more intense competition, in which the lurid and titillating and exaggerated typically prevailed. For every serious and earnest political blog, there was always an alternative prepared to throw red meat before fire-breathing partisans, or else go the full tabloid route. Wonkette, for instance, became the Perez Hilton of Beltway gossip, gaining enormous attention by showcasing Jessica Cutler, a congressional staffer who blogged about steamy details of her affairs with various government officials. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 968

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the penny press and yellow journalism chapters earlier in The Attention Merchants — the same competitive pressure recurring. — connects to: Attention competition by the late 1950s rivaled the penny-press frenzy of the 1830s — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 487; Telegraph-era news formats structurally favored racist stereotype-recycling — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 491; Online participation follows the same winner-take-all hierarchy the old media had — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 967 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Telegraph-era news formats structurally favored racist stereotype-recycling #responds-to (0.80) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 491
• Online participation follows the same winner-take-all hierarchy the old media had #complicates (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 967