Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Overview By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days. A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government – a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials. Rather than an […]
Experts expect online information to be organized in smarter, more useful ways in coming years, but there is a dispute about whether the improvements will match Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s first-proposed, visionary ideals of a fully functioning semantic…
Summary of Findings The November 5 shootings at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas – which resulted in the death of 13 Americans – was the public’s top news story last week. News coverage of the tragedy was also high, with the national media devoting more attention to the story than to any other. […]
Barack Obama’s job approval rating holds steady at 49% in the latest survey, with 39% saying they disapprove of the way he is handling his job as president. Obama’s approval ratings have been mostly unchanged over the last six months, though there have been some significant shifts in opinion among independents. Ratings of Obama’s job […]
Voting intentions for this fall’s midterm elections continue to be closely divided. Currently, 45% of registered voters say that if the election were held today they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their district, or lean to the Democrat, while 42% say they would for the Republican candidate or lean to the GOP candidate. […]
With the legislative process stalled in recent weeks, the media turned away from health care reform. But President Obama’s much-awaited February 25 summit meeting changed that. Meanwhile, a modicum of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill fueled coverage of the economy and a mea culpa before Congress put Toyota in the headlines.
Summary of Findings Americans closely tracked the final stages of the long-running debate over health care reform legislation last week as the story dominated media coverage. More than half (53%) of the public says the debate was the story they followed most closely, while the story was the focus of 37% of news coverage. Half […]