Public Focused on Economy, Election Impact
Most Aware of Energy Drink Warnings
Most Aware of Energy Drink Warnings
Summary of Findings The results of the midterm elections dominated both the public’s interest and media attention last week as Republicans easily won control of the House while making big gains in the Senate and in many statehouses. Fully 43% say they followed news about the election outcome more closely than any other news, according […]
The state of the troubled U.S. economy, the old reliable of news stories, was the biggest topic in the news last week. But the media also focused on some new TSA screening techniques that seemed to poke and provoke some travelers. And continued coverage of the midterms focused on new power players in Washington.
Summary of Findings A series of major breaking stories captured the attention of both the public and the media in 2010, while news about the nation’s struggling economy consistently attracted high levels of public interest and coverage throughout the year. Each week, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducts national public […]
If the tea parties were not prominent in newspaper headlines, they were front and center in the television coverage that began on Monday evening and went past midnight. A keyword search of election-related terms culled from the coverage on the three commercial broadcast networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) and the three major cable news outlets […]
For the third time this month, bloggers remained wrapped up in the WikiLeaks affair and U.S. government response. Bloggers also cheered the end the of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. On Twitter, news media predictions for 2011 garnered the most attention. And a shocking event caught live on video drew the most views on YouTube.
The economy topped the news for the sixth straight week, while a string of tragedies—the death of a top diplomat, the suicide of Bernie Madoff’s son, and the suicide of an unstable Florida gunman—also made headlines. And health care, after months of absence, returned to the news in a significant way.
Last week the economy—or one nuanced element of it—led bloggers’ conversation. And the No. 2 topic was a famous athlete’s domestic situation. Meanwhile news (and rumors) about the iPad topped a tech-heavy news agenda on Twitter.
Summary of Findings Both the public and the media focused most closely last week on the congressional elections as Tuesday’s midterm vote approached. Still, the public’s interest in election news did not increase in the final days of the campaign, despite heavy news coverage. The latest News Interest Index survey, conducted among 1,003 adults from […]