Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
U.S. President Barack Obama is popular in nations across much of the world. This is especially true in Western Europe, although he also receives extremely high ratings in countries such as Canada, Japan, South Korea, India, Brazil, Kenya and Nigeria. In most predominantly Muslim nations surveyed, there is less enthusiasm for the new president, with […]
Scientists hold overwhelmingly positive views about the current state of science in the United States. More than three-quarters (76%) say that this is generally a “good time” for science, and about as many (73%) say the same about their scientific specialty. That optimism extends to their views about careers in their specialty field; two-thirds (67%) […]
Politics and science have become entangled on numerous occasions over the past several years. Conservatives have grown increasingly skeptical of the scientific evidence for human-induced climate change, even as climate scientists argue that this evidence is incontrovertible. Battles over the teaching of evolution in the public schools have continued to generate controversy. And most scientists […]
Contrary to the mainstream media focus on the Sotomayor confirmation hearings last week, social media reflected a very different news agenda. On blogs, Sarah Palin’s political future and views on energy policy dominated. On Twitter, Iran led the conversation for a fifth week in a row. And on YouTube, a controversy over a photo of President Obama was resolved.
One corollary to the changes in the American press in Washington is the rise of a new foreign press. In pure numbers, few areas of the Washington press corps have experienced greater growth than the international media. In 1968, Washington’s Foreign Press Center opened to serve the estimated 160 foreign correspondents reporting from the nation’s […]
With the political battle over health care legislation intensifying in Washington, that subject generated its highest level of coverage, by far, last week. But a remark by the president at the end of his health care press conference quickly changed the news agenda.
In a week that exposed dramatically different news agendas between social and mainstream media, online commentators shifted away from the King of Pop to focus on a 30-year-old technological breakthrough and the death of an offbeat TV celebrity. The most viewed YouTube video captured an impromptu cell phone snafu.