Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Demographics On the whole, both samples (even unweighted) fairly closely reflected the American public. In most demographic categories, both samples differed from U.S. Census figures by 4 percentage points — the statistical margin of error — or less.[1. All demographic comparisons presented in this section are based on unweighted data. Most surveys use mathematical weighting […]
The first part of the study compared coverage from 1977, 1987 and 1997 in seven media outlets. It looked at all the coverage on the three main network newscasts for one month (March) of each of those years, as well as the front page coverage of the New York and Los Angeles Times, and the […]
State of the Nation: Bright Surpassing even Clinton’s hike in approval ratings in the past two weeks is a 13% point jump in satisfaction with the way “things are going in this country today.” Fully 59% of Americans now say they are satisfied with the country — the highest number since the end of the […]
Design of the Influential Americans Survey Sample The results of the Opinion Leaders survey are based on Americans who are influential in their chosen field. The sample was designed to represent these Influentials in ten professional areas of expertise: media; business and finance; foreign affairs; defense; state and local government; think tanks and academia; religious […]
Design of the Influential Americans Survey Sample The purpose of the Pew Center survey was primarily to learn what America’s leadership elites believe America’s role in the post Cold War world should be. These leadership respondents, whom we call America’s Influentials or Opinion Leaders, consisted of 591 men and women chosen from recognized lists of […]
Introduction and Summary The post-Cold War era may be less than a decade old, but Americans whose views help shape U.S. foreign policy have grown remarkably comfortable with it. Compared to four years ago when they were deeply troubled, American Opinion Leaders today see the world as a better place, where U.S. influence is enhanced […]
Introduction and Summary The American public is more critical of press practices, less enthusiastic about the news product and less appreciative of the watchdog role played by the news media than it was a dozen years ago when The People & The Press surveys were inaugurated. Those polls concluded that criticism of the way the […]
Opinion of National Media Slumps Increased criticism of specific press practices may have contributed to the more general decline in favorability toward various news media outlets. Favorable ratings for the national network television news have fallen to a twelve year low. Only 15% of Americans now have a very favorable opinion of the network TV […]