Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Three of the top-10 topics on the cable and radio talk shows last week directly involved the hosts themselves. They included an argument over the SCHIP health care program, the debate over U.S. policy in Iraq, and the strange case of Randi Rhodes.
People with chronic conditions are likely to be older and less educated than the general population. Large surveys of Americans generally show that about one-fifth of the adult population live with disabilities or serious chronic conditions.[3.numoffset=”3″ In the 2004 American Community Survey, 35 million Americans age 16+ were estimated to be living with a “long-lasting […]
Summary of Findings Last week’s shootings at Virginia Tech have had little immediate impact on public opinion about gun control. Six-in-ten Americans say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 32% say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns. Opinion has changed little since 2004, when 58% […]
It’s probably no surprise that the college campus massacre proved to be the biggest talk show topic of the year. But while there were plenty of subplots to talk about, radio and cable hosts managed to seize on some of “hot button” issues to emerge from the worst shooting spree in the nation’s history.
The Attorney General faced a grilling from Congress, the Supreme Court weighed in on abortion rights, hundreds were slaughtered in a single day in Iraq, and a vicious storm wreaked havoc on the East Coast. But each of those events last week was completely overshadowed by the media’s non-stop coverage of the horrific events that unfolded on the campus of Virginia Tech.
Background The Pew Internet Project has been tracking internet users’ participation in online activities since we began polling in March 2000. We have asked about nearly 94 web activities over that time. Two of them, email use and news gathering, have been included in every survey. We have polled other activities intermittently, from about 6 […]