Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Summary of Findings For the second week in a row, Americans followed news about the swine flu and its vaccine more closely than any other news story – with public interest outpacing the amount of national media coverage devoted to the story. About three-in-ten (29%) name reports about the fast-spreading flu and its vaccine as […]
Summary of Findings The Fox News Channel is viewed by Americans in more ideological terms than other television news networks. And while the public is evenly divided in its view of hosts of cable news programs having strong political opinions, more Fox News viewers see this as a good thing than as a bad thing. […]
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.
The economy and health care continued to lead the news last week as they have so often in recent months. But global warming, thanks in part to a controversy over emails, received a record level of coverage.
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 […]