New GOP-led House Leads on Blogs

Echoing the mainstream press, the blogosphere last week focused its attention on the new Congress sworn in on January 5. And perhaps not surprisingly, liberal and conservative bloggers had strongly divergent views about a House of Representatives under Republican control.

For the week of January 3-7, fully 32% of the news links on blogs were about the 112th Congress, making it the No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The same subject was also the leading topic in the traditional press last week. The time period covered by this NMI report ended on January 7, a day before the shootings in Arizona that killed six people and left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition. That event, as it did in the mainstream press, consumed the online community almost immediately after it happened. For the week ending January 7, an eclectic mix of stories generated attention in the blogosphere, including two Beltway political stories, two involving the entertainment industry and another that some people were calling, half-jokingly, a possible sign of the apocalypse. The discussion about the new Congress largely followed party lines. Conservatives cheered the decision by Republicans to read the Constitution on the House floor and were hopeful about the party's plan to undo some of Obama's agenda.