Alejandro@Oxford

When you read the title, you may wonder what is the link between these three things. Yesterday, Tobias Escher, a colleague of mine here at the OII gave us a taste of some research he is doing in his “free time” (if there is such a thing in a DPHil, or rather if there is anything that can be called “busy time” d

). Through his research he wants to find a relation between traditional media and blogs in agenda-setting. He is doing it by comparing which stories both media follow, though an elaborate system based on keywords, databases and google/yahoo services. I must say that I still have to understand the relation between reporting a story and setting the agenda, for the latter is, I reckon, more related with presence or importance of the medium than with frequency of the stories. In any case, I found it very inspiring and interesting, I hope he finds the time to complete the research!

So now you may ask what about “democracy”? This morning I was reading the editorial of the Herald Tribune, it is about how bad for democracy is the division within in the parties shown during the Supertuesday; for the editor the animosity or confrontation between supporters of each candidate “is not the way democracy is supposed to work”, on the contrary party unity that will bring a more united America is “how democracy is supposed to work”. I don’t agree at all with this perspective, healthy political and democratic confrontation is a good think, especially in a system with not so much plurality as American politics!

So note that I am reporting from a mainstream media and blogging, so I am among those being set by the traditional media, in my case the relation is clear, I don’t know about the others though…. In any case, Tobias here you have a story, a blog, a traditional media and a bunch of keywords for your database!