Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Summary of Findings Phone Calls, Not Polls, May Sway Congress FINDING 1: The percentage of Americans saying President Clinton has the moral standing to lead the country fell in the wake of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s report, leaving the country divided: 48% of the public say yes; 43% say no. In late August, a solid […]
Betty Currie Shortly after the Lewinsky story broke, Clinton’s personal secretary Betty Currie was named as a potentially important link in Kenneth Starr’s case–a key White House contact for Lewinsky. A round of personality profiles appeared that tried to put a face on the woman–they ranged from that of a motherly friend to Lewinsky, to […]
Introduction and Summary The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal has American parents talking with their children about everything from whether the President lied or should be punished, to broader discussions about values and sex. Parents of younger children wait for their kids to start these conversations, while parents of teenagers are as likely to bring up the subject […]
The narrative techniques and underlying messages in newspaper coverage.
Frame The findings suggest that the notion that the press builds most stories around just a couple of story telling frames, such as conflict, is untrue. Newspapers, at least in their front pages, employ a variety of frames, and no one of them dominates. The study identified thirteen possible frames for news stories to test […]
The average American dedicates more than an hour a day to the news. More Americans read, watch or listen to the news each day than exercise or use a personal computer. Indeed, daily consumption of news appears thin only when compared to personal activities such as family meals and calling friends or relatives to talk. […]
Overwhelmingly, Americans place a premium on accuracy and timeliness and, to a somewhat lesser degree, information that is helpful and hard to find. Fully 90% say that it is important that the news is accurate; 88% say it is important for the news to be timely and up-to-date. Over three-quarters (78%) want the news to […]
Introduction and Summary The Pew Research Center’s biennial news use survey finds that overall Americans are reading, watching and listening to the news just as often as they were two years ago. But the type of news Americans follow and the way they follow it are being fundamentally reshaped by technological change and the post-Cold […]
The public’s news interests help explain the relative resilience of these news sources. Crime, health and community — the focus of much of today’s local news — are the subjects that most interest Americans. The public expresses considerably less interest in news about political figures and events in Washington and international affairs — topics which […]