Check out these headlines pulled from Google News regarding the recent Obama speech (full text).  The context and content of the speech make this an excellent media event to analyze.  It’s full of taboo issues  and the stakes are sky high.  Doesn’t hurt that this is an incredibly active political season.

What can we gather about how we consumer, distribute and understand mass media?   How does the context and the entry point affect our consumption of this speech?  How do our own views and history color the speech and alter the path we use to get at this information? How does the content of the speech and the headlines and the sources alter the spread of information?

Obama denounces preacher, urges race healing Reuters – 37 minutes ago By Caren Bohan PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday criticized his preacher’s racially charged sermons but …

Obama confronts nation’s race issues Los Angeles Times, CA – 2 hours ago The senator condemns his pastor’s remarks as ‘profoundly distorted’ while acknowledging the legacy of racial divide in a bid to quell the latest war of …

Obama calls for racial unity Boston Globe, United States – 3 hours ago Barack Obama, whose presidential campaign has tried to transcend race, is taking on the issue head-on this morning, trying to quell a controversy over …

Excerpts of Obama’s Speech on Race The Associated Press – 1 hour ago Excerpts of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s speech on race Tuesday at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, as transcribed by …

Transcript: Barack Obama’s Speech On Race CBS News, NY – 2 hours ago Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., delivers a speech on race in Philadelphia, March 18, 2008. (CBS) A look at the young senator from …

Activists go wild over Obama speech Washington Times, DC – 1 hour ago Attendees at the Take Back America conference were riveted as Barack Obama gave his address today on race relations in America and greeted his words with …

Obama confronts racial divisions in the US Philadelphia Inquirer, PA – 2 hours ago By Thomas Fitzgerald Sen. Barack Obama urged people to move beyond the “racial stalemate we have been stuck in for years” in a major speech in Philadelphia …

Will Obama’s Speech Work? Wall Street Journal – 2 hours ago From a political perspective, Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on race in America this morning in Philadelphia was extraordinary. Obama addressed head-on the bad …

Obama addresses America’s racial legacy MSNBC – 2 hours ago PHILADELPHIA — Barack Obama gave a sweeping address on race in this country today, using the statements made by his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, …

Race and Rev. Wright: Obama’s eloquent history lesson Kansas City Star, MO – 1 hour ago By Steve Winn, Kansas City Star Editorial Board Sen. Barack Obama met the race issue head-on Tuesday, discussing it with intelligence, sensitivity and the …

Did Obama’s Speech Help or Hurt? Newsday, NY – 1 hour ago 1. Obama finally confronted race head-on — but is that a good thing?. Obama’s meteoric rise — and stunning victories in virtually all-white states like …

On Defensive, Obama Plans Talk on Race New York Times, United States – 3 hours ago Alex Brandon/AP Senator Barack Obama took part in an MTV discussion with Iraq veterans on Monday in Scranton, Pa. By JODI KANTOR and JEFF ZELENY Faced with …

Obama talks frankly about race Atlanta Journal Constitution,  USA – 1 hour ago By AJC | Tuesday, March 18, 2008, 11:29 AM Sen. Barack Obama tackled the divisive issue of race and continued to distanced himself from controversial …

Obama Confronts Racial Division in US The Associated Press – 1 hour ago PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Barack Obama unsparingly criticized his longtime pastor’s words while strongly defending the man himself Tuesday in a politically risky …

A little parsing of Barack Obama’s race speech Los Angeles Times, CA – 59 minutes ago Lord knows Barack Obama’s Philadelphia speech on race is going to get dissected like a high school biology experiment, but one element jumped out as he …

Some Quotes From Obama Pastor The Associated Press – 1 hour ago Some controversial comments by Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently retired: _ In a sermon after the terrorist attacks on …

Obama Speech: Rebuking Rev. Wright Wall Street Journal – 2 hours ago Sen. Barack Obama confronted white resentment head-on in a way not often seen in a political race. He compared the dark thoughts of white citizens to those …

Checking In With The Other Side CBS News, NY – 1 hour ago By Kevin Drum (Political Animal) CHECKING IN WITH THE OTHER SIDE….I thing we can safely assume that Barack Obama’s supporters will all swoon over his …

Christopher Cooper reports on Sen. Obama’s speech. Wall Street Journal – 2 hours ago Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, dogged in recent days by his longtime connections to a Chicago pastor cast as radical, delivered what is …

‘Special Report’ Panel on the Impact of Barack Obama’s Pastor FOXNews – 43 minutes ago This is a rush transcript of “Special Report With Brit Hume” from March 17, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. SEN. …

Update: Barack Obama Discusses Race, Politics In Stirring Speech In PA AHN – 47 minutes ago Philadelphia, PA (AHN)-Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama delivered a stirring speech on Tuesday discussing race and politics in the US today, …

Obama’s speech on race, Wright saves his campaign — for now Kansas City Star, MO – 2 hours ago Barack Obama’s smoothly delivered speech on race wasn’t perfect. But it hit most of the right notes. His campaign for president moves on. …

Obama confronts racial division in US Rock Hill Herald, SC – 1 hour ago By NEDRA PICKLER and MATT APUZZO · AP Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., listens to her husband speak about …

Obama Asks For Continued Fight Against Racial Divide KCRG, IA – 1 hour ago Speaking in Philadelphia Tuesday, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama gave an impassioned speech that addressed not only the controversial statements made by the …

Barack Obama’s “I Have A Dream” Speech? HipHopDX, CA – 1 hour ago After Rev. Wright’s controversial comments about America made their way onto every news channel in the country, some believed Barack Obama would no longer …

Obama Holds Forth on Race, Answering Critics NPR – 2 hours ago Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks in Philadelphia, Pa., where he condemned “profoundly distorted” sermons by his former pastor, but refused to disown the …

Barack Obama Addresses Racial Wounds NewsOXY, FL – 1 hour ago Barack Obama addresses pastor’s remarks hoping to silence the storm that has engulfed his presidential campaign. During a televised speech, Senator Obama …

Obama’s 13 Applauded Points MyFox Washington DC, DC – 2 hours ago During Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday about race and his former pastor’s recent controversial comments, 13 points received applause. They are recounted below …

Students Say Obama Needed To Clear The Air CBS2 Chicago, IL – 1 hour ago CHICAGO (CBS) ― Some students at the University of Illinois at Chicago made a point of tuning in Tuesday morning to hear what Sen. …

Obama: “Not This Time” Yahoo! News – 1 hour ago The Nation — Barack Obama could have responded to the controversy that has been ginned up with regard to comments made by his former pastor will a safe and …

Follow the consequences.

Headlines are a partial result of past data… what keywords worked in the past… what abstracts attract not just eyes but clicks.  Headlines are a partial result of the editorial bias…

that bias is a combination of reader bias, technology limits (character limits), copy editor, editor…

what about the Google algorithm?  how much “say” does it have it what we see? how we see? when we see?  If not the Google algorithm then the WSJ alerts, or your local paper, or your local news station…

Check this out:

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN1440646120080318

Look at this page!  It has so much automated and semi-automated content.  Look at the context it puts the SUMMARY of the speech in.  How does that affect communication of mass messages?  what do we bring to this experience plus the actual speech and the sub speeches themselves?

No, this isn’t an arbitrary let’s ask really rhetorical questions about politics and the Internet.  How, why, by whom, and when political messages are consumed impacts our world.  The medium matters, the context matters.  For us, as consumers, it matters if we value our content. For media people who make money by making sure lots of people consume content, it helps to understand these aspects.  For advertisers and agencies, it makes a difference where, when and in what context your ads appear. For politicians, it can make or break a campaign to understand the contingencies in message delivery, not just whether the message itself was consumed.

I ask these questions because I don’t have the answers and have only loose hypothesizes at this point and there’s no right answer, just more or less relevant data that gets us closer to understanding the contingencies.

Post 2 contains a behaviorist perspective on the speech itself.  Religion, race, politics, history, future, an appeal to dreams, a call out for responsibility, a call out to ask questions, Obama’s bias, his speechwriter’s bias, text versus oration, timing…. Yikes!

~R

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