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Re: Instant urban legend--Research proposal



Wait a minute folks.

We are talking about documenting these events.  Well and good.  But
keeping newspapers?  I don't EVEN want to get into THAT discussion again.
 There is something much more interesting to document here, something I
have not seen on the regular news channels.

It looks to me that this phenomenal rumor about gasoline prices
skyrocketing has not been picked up by the media.  From the reports on
this listserve, the centers of the rumor were most probably in Eastern
Kansas or Western Missouri.  Because of the way it seems to have spread,
I imagine it was on one of the Christian "news" channels.  But maybe not.


So here's the interesting question: it's easy enough to document
predigested news bites as seen on TV or in the papers.  How do you trace
an urban legend and document its growth?  So far, the only thing I can
think of is to monitor and capture materials on newsgroups such as this
one.  But that has all sorts of observer/observed interaction problems.

"Any thoughts?" he asked, hoping to sway the list back to matters
archival....

JHF

John Howard Fowler, PhD, MLIS
Consulting Archivist
3221 W. 177th
Torrance, CA  90504-4003
310-327-5848

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