At a time when science issues are increasingly part of the broader public discourse, Pew Research Center explored the role of science-related Facebook pages – both those that were meant to enhance the reach of existing science-related media enterprises and those that arose from science enthusiasts and experts utilizing social media platforms to bring their […]
Spirituality and religion can be defined in many different ways, and the distinction between the two concepts often is muddy. For the purposes of this analysis, spirituality refers to beliefs or feelings about supernatural phenomena, such as life after death, the existence of a soul apart from the human body, and the presence of spiritual […]
Commercial voter files have been used in a wide variety of ways, either by themselves or in conjunction with other data. Although such files have been employed by political campaigns for many years, their use by journalists and others interested in elections has increased recently as familiarity with the files has grown and the ancillary […]
Several of the adjustment approaches used in this study require a dataset that is highly representative of the U.S. adult population. This dataset essentially serves as a reference for making the survey at hand (e.g., the online opt-in samples) more representative. When selecting a population dataset, researchers typically use a large, federal benchmark dataset such […]
The public has long been divided over issues of race: The extent to which discrimination exists and what – if any – approaches should be undertaken to address it. In recent years, growing shares of the public say more needs to be done to address racial equality and see discrimination against blacks as an impediment […]
Historically, public opinion surveys have relied on the ability to adjust their datasets using a core set of demographics – sex, age, race and ethnicity, educational attainment, and geographic region – to correct any imbalances between the survey sample and the population. These are all variables that are correlated with a broad range of attitudes […]