http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119992474591679481.html

Interesting take on how the speed and volume of information affects sentiment, decision making, and behavior.

"What we have just seen in New Hampshire is the biggest media meltdown since "Dewey Defeats Truman."... The truth is that all of us are feeling and stumbling our way through the altered mental states being imposed on us by the Internet... the pressure of 24/7 electronic media has drastically cut the time available to make judgments, and so the quality of decisions has declined. The missed call in New Hampshire is the first sharp demonstration of this truth for journalism itself. Odds are that nothing will be learned from this because no one has time to think about it."

Thomas E. Obama

January 10, 2008; Page A14

Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2008                       

WONDER LAND, By DANIEL HENNINGER  

What we have just seen in New Hampshire is the biggest media meltdown since "Dewey Defeats Truman."

"Dewey Defeats Truman" is perhaps the most well-known U.S. newspaper headline ever. Polls and pundits predicted in 1948 that GOP New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey would beat President Harry Truman. Back then, in the dead-trees era of journalism, only one paper ran the famous headline. But this is the Internet Age. Today, the media drinks the Kool-Aid of toxic analysis en masse. The socially healthy news is that New Hampshire shows the media still can't force Kool-Aid down the throats of the voters.

I have referred several times before in this space to Tony Blair's observation, after resigning last year, that the pressure of 24/7 electronic media has drastically cut the time available to make judgments, and so the quality of decisions has declined. The missed call in New Hampshire is the first sharp demonstration of this truth for journalism itself. Odds are that nothing will be learned from this because no one has time to think about it.

The mortified pollsters will think about it. Polls before the vote had Barack Obama leaving a tear-stained Hillary Clinton in the dust, some showing a lead of 12 points. She won by three, so on paper a 15-point error, a statistical fluke of startling proportions. ...

All that said, taking potshots at the media herd as it "pivots" this way and that across the political plain is easy sport. The truth is that all of us are feeling and stumbling our way through the altered mental states being imposed on us by the Internet.

The one real thing that happened in the Iowa Democratic caucus is that Sen. Obama beat Sen. Clinton by eight points and by one delegate. A big deal for sure. There was a time that it would be reported as a big deal by the nation's print newspapers and several TV networks, after which intrigued voters would go back to their day jobs until New Hampshire.

Not now. An event that was once only big now gets air blown into it round the clock with electronic hot-air torches. While the media pumped the Iowa story to a colossal size, voters checked the Web to learn that the new Barack balloon was still expanding in the sky. Then people start exchanging emails. Have you seen this?? He's up by 12!!! By Monday, Mr. Obama had grown into a benevolent Godzilla, sweeping the entire Clinton village into the sea. All this after Iowa.

Should the media somehow do it differently? Who knows? Everyone has to file reports all the time, and the "everyone" now is simply a torrent of reporters, commentators, bloggers and comments on blogs. Buried amid all this you can indeed find it written that Iowa is an anomalous state with a weird caucus system. But no one is going to put this disclaimer in italics above everything they write or say about Iowa. Absent that ballast, however, the outsized weight given to the Obama victory bends reality. It turns the campaign into a video game.

Yes, it would be nice if more pundits tried to push against media bubbles of the sort that floated out of Iowa, but in fact it isn't easy. The force and drama of these new Web-driven political narratives is often compelling, overpowering and frankly, fun. It's the new national sport. When a team is rolling up the score, most people want the refs to get out of the way.

Voter behavior in the new age remains a mystery yet to be explained. A new conventional folly is forming that Hillary achieved this entire reversal because, for about 2.7 seconds, her tear ducts opened. Therefore women voted for her. Who knew politics was so easy? Indeed, voter behavior has become so mysterious that it's making the press paranoid, as seen in this headline yesterday: "Did Obama's Supporters Lie?"

The better explanation for Iowa and New Hampshire lies inside a more benign view of the dark forces described here. …

Here's a simple explanation for what happened in New Hampshire. In the 96 hours between Thursday's victory by Barack Obama in Iowa and Tuesday morning, enough election output poured over voters to fill the entire Truman-Dewey campaign of 1948. This thunder said: Barack Obama is the party nominee, a new era has dawned on American politics and the election is now about "change." Like Dewey, he can't lose. New Hampshirites did what normal people do. They pushed back.

Lesson learned: In elections yet to come in the Internet Age, it will be the habit of the media to overdo it. As is their wont, the voters will undo it.