Research: Blogosphere Analytics and Arts Education

We conducted blogosphere analytics related to the Ford Foundation's Integrating Arts and Education Reform initiative. The first step was to develop a list of keywords and phrases related to the work. Morningside Analytics refined and expanded the terms, and then tracked where they emerged in dialogue throughout the blogosphere.

Research findings were revealing...

First, while initial analysis identified 12 core groups of bloggers linking to the same content, the discussion on arts learning and education reform was concentrated in four main groupings:

Parents (in particular Mom blogs)

Technology and Science (Silicon Valley)

Political (left and right-wing)

Teachers/educators

Second, while blogger discussions within each group tended to remain internal to the attentive cluster, bloggers within the “teachers/educators” cluster spread the conversation to each of the other clusters. Additionally, many within this group looked to some key sites as sources for information. Some sample sources included:

http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/bostonMommy

http://www.debaird.net

http://educationpolicyblog.blogspot.com

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/bridging-differences

http://blog.greateducation.org

Third, bloggers tended to discuss the subjects of education and education reform more than arts and learning. Arts education and learning tends to be a subset of the larger education dialogue.

Fourth, the final key observation that emerged from our research is that the term "creativity" rather than "arts" had greater reach in online discussions. This larger discussion taking place under the banner of creativity included issues of innovation, often within the context of technology advances.

Some of the terms included:

• arts learning
• arts policy
• creativity
• curriculum narrowing
• education policy

Download the Blogosphere Analytics and Arts Education Executive Summary to learn more about methodology and findings.