How Social and Traditional Media Differ in Treatment of Conventions and Beyond

As the candidates for president reintroduced themselves at their conventions and began the last phase of the campaign, they received markedly different treatment in social media than in the mainstream press, a new study finds.

The conversation on Twitter, blogs and Facebook about Mitt Romney and Barack Obama during this key period changed little with events -- even during the two candidates' own nominating conventions. The conversation in all of these platforms was also consistently negative, according to the study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the mainstream media, by contrast, both Romney and Obama received a version of the traditional convention bounce, with coverage about them becoming more positive during the week of their party's nationally televised gathering. The media portrait of this key month in the campaign is consistent with what PEJ has seen in social media throughout the campaign. Whether it would prove true in other campaigns cannot be known. But the differences raise a question about whether social media may make what Americans hear about politics more negative and may make it harder for political actors, particularly those trailing in the polls, to alter the media narrative.