Summary of Findings Two major disasters – the earthquake in Haiti and the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico – captured the public’s attention more than any other major stories in 2010, but Americans also kept a consistent eye on the nation’s struggling economy. In mid-January, 60% of the public said they were following […]
Overview The federal government continues to get positive marks for efforts to reduce the threat of terrorism, but many Americans say luck is a big reason why the United States has not suffered a major attack at home since Sept. 11, 2001. About seven-in-ten (69%) say the government is doing very (15%) or fairly well […]
There was a significant spike in coverage of the troubled U.S. economy last week as Washington seemed to start tackling some of the key issues more aggressively. And if Julian Assange wasn’t already a household word, the man famous for sharing U.S. secrets generated enormous attention with new revelations.
The media scrambled last week as authorities arrested a suspect in the Times Square terror case, the Gulf oil spill grew more ominous, Wall Street went briefly into free fall and floods took a deadly toll in Tennessee. All of which left little room for coverage of a crucial overseas election.
During a Christmas week when the Senate passed its version of health care reform, social media devoted more attention to the subject than it had at any time this year. Bloggers also focused on an international grassroots campaign. On Twitter, a Blackberry outage led the way, while on YouTube, questions about the attack on the Italian Prime Minister drew significant attention.
With the White House producing a post-mortem on what went wrong, the Christmas bombing plot led the news agenda last week. And it was joined by a number of related terrorism topics in the news, harkening back to the days of nervous post 9/11 headlines.
Summary of Findings As President Obama and Democratic leaders mounted what was characterized as the final push to pass health care reform legislation last week, the public followed the health care debate more closely than any other major story (33% say they followed this story most closely). The debate also topped media coverage. The percentage […]
Overview The public has consistently expressed strong interest in the health care debate, but relatively few Americans can correctly answer two key questions related to the Senate’s consideration of health care legislation. In the latest installment of the Pew Research Center’s News IQ Quiz, just 32% know that the Senate passed its version of the […]
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