Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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.
Overview The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows. Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news […]
Summary of Findings The public took a renewed interest in the war in Afghanistan last week as President Obama unveiled plans to send more troops there while vowing to start bringing them home in 2011. Still, as many people say they talked with friends about Tiger Woods’ troubles as Afghanistan. More than four-in-ten (43%) say […]
A diverse mix of stories—from war policy to a scientific breakthrough—topped the news agenda in the blogosphere last week. But the dominant topic was a heinous crime that generated much more attention online than in the traditional press. On Twitter, the top subject was a very different kind of crime story.
Last week, bloggers gave more attention to the subject of global warming than at any time this year. And while skeptics continued to focus on “Climate-gate,” defenders were more vocal than in previous weeks. On Twitter, the growing Tiger Woods scandal earned the most attention. And on YouTube, a feisty exchange between the White House press secretary and a reporter was the most viewed news video.
Summary of Findings As the first vials of swine flu vaccine make their way into American communities, public interest in news about the disease is increasing. Nearly as many people now cite swine flu as their top news story of the week as mention the health care debate – the first time in several months […]
The President’s long-awaited decision on how to wage war in Afghanistan was the No. 1 story last week, surpassing coverage of the two big domestic issues—the economy and health care. But a scandal-scorched athlete and some White House party crashers found their way into the top stories as well.
Summary of Findings In a week that saw passage of health care legislation by the Senate Finance Committee, news about health care reform remained front-and-center on the public’s news agenda, topping both public interest and news coverage. There also has been a sharp increase in the proportion of Americans saying they expect a health care […]
Summary of Findings The public continued to closely track news about health care reform last week, while the media divided its attention across a range of foreign and domestic stories. A third (33%) of the public says they followed the debate over health care reform more closely than other top stories last week, while 22% […]
A vote in Switzerland to ban the construction of Muslim minarets and controversies over global warming research led conversations in the blogosphere last week. On Twitter, it was a story about a local billboard campaign with unintended consequences. And on YouTube, a pop singer made her second appearance in recent weeks.