Early blogs could force mainstream media coverage and oust political figures

Evidence

Blogs were heralded as the new frontier of this participatory journalism. During the beginning of the second Iraq War, “warblogging” spread “trustworthy alternative views concerning the objectives of the Bush Administration and Pentagon and the corporate media spin surrounding them.” And in 2002, then-senator Trent Lott made a pro-segregationist remark at a birthday dinner for venerable former Dixiecrat senator Strom Thurmond. While it was largely ignored by the mainstream media, which treated it as a minor tidbit, it was picked up by two major liberal blogs: Talking Points Memo and Eschaton. A few days later, the New York Times began covering the story, and two weeks later, Lott stepped down. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 106

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete early instance of the attention-economy dynamics this book charts; the Lott affair prefigures later virality-driven accountability. — connects to: Blogs forced-out a senator that mainstream media overlooked — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 106; Large vocal protests can force mainstream media to platform dissenters; Well-planned protest spectacles can dictate front-page coverage — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 369

Broader Connections

• Blogs forced-out a senator that mainstream media overlooked #exemplifies (0.95) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 106
• Large vocal protests can force mainstream media to platform dissenters #corroborates (0.80)
• Well-planned protest spectacles can dictate front-page coverage #corroborates (0.78) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 369