Research

By observing the global flow of news online, Cornell computer scientists have managed to track and analyze the "news cycle" – the way stories rise and fall in popularity.

Jon Kleinberg, Cornell professor of computer science, Jure Leskovec, postdoctoral researcher, and graduate student Lars Backstrom tracked 1.6 million online news sites, including 20,000 mainstream media sites and a vast array of blogs, over the three-month period leading up to the 2008 presidential election – a total of 90 million articles, one of the largest analyses anywhere of online news.

They found a consistent rhythm as stories rose into prominence and then fell off over just a few days, with a "heartbeat" pattern of handoffs between blogs and mainstream media. In mainstream media, they found, a story rises to prominence slowly then dies quickly; in the blogosphere, stories rise in popularity very quickly but then stay around longer, as discussion goes back and forth. Eventually though, almost every story is pushed aside by something newer. See the full story here

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