Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Congressional Ballot Remains Close Republicans have not garnered a big boost with voters from either the ongoing Clinton scandal or the recent upswing in the GOP’s image. Support for the two parties remains split both among registered voters (45% Republican vs. 46% Democrat) and the more narrowly-defined group of most likely voters (48% Republican vs. […]
What Triggers a Frame These findings raise another question: If we look at each narrative frame alone, how often did it stem from a particular trigger? In other words, how closely do journalists associate each frame depending on where the story originated? The study suggests some clear tendencies. Nearly four-in-ten times a journalist frames a […]
Introduction and Summary As Congress heads home for the summer campaign season, both parties face tough sells for their election themes. Despite Democratic charges of a Republican-led do-nothing Congress, Americans see the 105th Congress as no different than others in recent memory. But the GOP will have to shore up its image on issues, as […]
Americans Again Attentive In the wake of Clinton’s nationally-televised address, Americans tuned back into news about the scandal — and lowered their personal opinions about Clinton. Fully 72% of Americans were following the investigation very or somewhat closely, up from 56% the week before. The recent turn of events has further tarnished Clinton’s personal image. […]
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 […]
Local versus National Papers There were some noticeable differences in the way local and regional papers in the study framed stories versus the three national papers, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. The differences suggest that the front pages of local papers carry more straight forward reporting that focuses […]
Placement If one looks at how prominently stories were played on the front page, it tends to slightly reinforce the competitive frames of horse race, conflict, and injustice. They account for 35% of all lead stories, versus their overall representation as 31% of all stories. Conversely, the three explanatory frames (history, process and trends) are […]
Trigger In addition to identifying what narrative frames journalists used to present the news, the study tried to find what “triggered” each story to become news in the first place. Was a poll released? Did a news maker make a statement? Did the news organization decide to engage in enterprise on this topic? We called […]
Introduction and Summary Political consultants have clear consciences: Most do not think campaign practices that suppress turnout, use scare tactics and take facts out of context are unethical. They are nearly unanimous — 97% — in the belief that negative advertising is not wrong, and few blame themselves for public disillusionment with the political process. […]
Survey Findings Pre-election polling is tricky work. A number of unknown factors can stand in the way of accurate predictions — problems with identifying registered and likely voters, uncertainties about voter turnout, and last-minute shifts in candidate preference. But estimating voter preferences in biracial elections has been especially difficult. Pre-election surveys, even those taken just […]