Oil spill: public interest is waning
Although there is still no end in sight to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, public interest is clearly waning. There are fewer and fewer discussions on the subject.
This can be seen very clearly in the statistics for internet search terms and online trends on sites such as Twitter. The oil spill is now mentioned much less frequently than it was a month ago, according to Pressetext.de. The tweets on Twitter peaked around June 15. As a result, 17 percent of all postings revolved around the topic. In the meantime, the frequency has fallen to between 0.2 and 0.5 percent.
As media scientist Kai-Uwe Weidlich, Managing Director of the Media Institute in Ludwigshafen, told Pressetext, public interest is determined to a large extent by the news situation. In other words, the public is interested in what concerns them and what the media offers them. As the oil spill only affects a relatively small proportion of people, reporting ebbs away considerably. And as soon as a new disaster occurs, the previous one is usually quickly forgotten, says Weidlich.
www.pressetext.de
As media scientist Kai-Uwe Weidlich, Managing Director of the Media Institute in Ludwigshafen, told Pressetext, public interest is determined to a large extent by the news situation. In other words, the public is interested in what concerns them and what the media offers them. As the oil spill only affects a relatively small proportion of people, reporting ebbs away considerably. And as soon as a new disaster occurs, the previous one is usually quickly forgotten, says Weidlich.
www.pressetext.de
