Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Poorly Attended Election — Followed Closely Although the elections did not produce the partisan upheaval seen four years ago, Americans paid just as close attention to news about the outcome of this year’s contests as they did to the results in 1994. Some 42% of Americans followed news stories about election results very closely this […]
The Cigar In late August the rumor of Lewinsky using a cigar as a sexual toy began making the rounds in Washington. News Organizations largely kept the salacious rumor out of the mainstream press. But the initial account on the Drudge Report, a sanitized version of which was broadcast on the Fox News Channel on […]
The “Second Intern” From early in the story, rumors circulated in Washington that one or more other women were about to be identified as involved with the President. For the most part, the rumors stayed at the level of cocktail party buzz, but some outlets in the new media culture lean toward publication of such […]
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. […]