Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Charges against U.S. servicemen who captured one of the most wanted men in Iraq drew major attention from the blogosphere last week. A controversial singer was the hottest topic on Twitter. And a YouTube video intended to paint an unflattering portrait of Sarah Palin supporters was viewed more than 1 million times.
Coverage of the Army base massacre continued to dominate headlines as some of last week’s coverage examined whether Nidal Malik Hasan should have been stopped before his November 5 attack. And by week’s end, the plan to bring alleged 9/11 conspirators to trial in New York was dominating the headlines.
Summary of Findings The first week of fall brought little change to the public’s news agenda with the debate over health care reform continuing to top public interest. However, the news media play much less of a role in shaping views of health care reform and the economy – where personal experiences are an important […]
Overview As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative (50%) rather than a generally positive (27%) impression of the past 10 years. This stands in stark contrast to the public’s recollection of other decades in […]
As the political battles over health care reform intensify, religious organizations are forcefully adding their voices to the debate. They have launched media campaigns both for and against the proposals under consideration by the U.S. Congress, appealing to millions of Americans through national radio and television ads, Internet webcasts, conference calls, petitions, prayer vigils and […]
Coverage of health care was up last week, the economy was down and the war in Afghanistan remained about the same. But together, this trio continued their run atop the news agenda, a pattern we began to see settle in earlier this fall.
Summary of Findings The number of Americans who say they are hearing too much about President Obama has not increased since mid-summer, despite the president’s high media visibility. Still, 37% say they are hearing too much about Obama. Since Labor Day, Obama has addressed a joint session of Congress about health care legislation, spoken to […]
The U.S. unemployment rate jumped, the Afghan runoff election was cancelled and the House of Representatives passed a health care bill last week. But those stories all took a back seat to coverage of the killing spree at Fort Hood Texas, which quickly became a story about Islam and possibly, terrorism.