Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Many respondents said that as people put too much faith in data, humanity can be lost. Some argued that because technology corporations and, sometimes, governments are most often the agencies behind the code, algorithms are written to optimize efficiency and profitability without much thought about the possible societal impacts of the data modeling and analysis. […]
Nearly all of these respondents see the great advantages of the algorithms that are already changing how connected institutions and people live and work. A significant majority expects them to continue to proliferate – mostly invisibly – and expects that there will be an exponential rise in their influence. They say this will bring many […]
To analyze the content of congressional outreach, researchers gathered a comprehensive set of Facebook posts and press releases issued by offices of members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives between Jan. 1, 2015, and April 30, 2016. Facebook posts were obtained from the legislators’ official pages (via API) and press releases were collected […]
Data in this report are drawn from a wave of the American Trends Panel (ATP), conducted from Nov. 29 to Dec. 12, 2016, among 4,183 respondents. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 4,183 respondents is plus or minus 2.7% percentage points. The American Trends Panel, created by Pew Research Center, is […]
About two-in-three U.S. adults say fake news stories cause a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current issues. And nearly a quarter say they have ever shared completely made-up news.
There are two strands of thinking that tie together here. One is that the algorithm creators (code writers), even if they strive for inclusiveness, objectivity and neutrality, build into their creations their own perspectives and values. The other is that the datasets to which algorithms are applied have their own limits and deficiencies. Even datasets […]
This report was produced by Pew Research Center as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation. This report is a collaborative effort based on […]
One aspect of civic life that registers little connection with local news habits is perceived political diversity — that is, whether a person feels residents of their community generally share the same political views or not. Seven-in-ten U.S. adults report living in communities with a mix of political views, while about three-in-ten (27%) say the […]
The respondents to this canvassing offered a variety of ideas about how individuals and the broader culture might respond to the algorithm-ization of life. They noted that those who create and evolve algorithms are not held accountable to society and argued there should be some method by which they are. They also argued there is […]
While community attachment and local voting show a consistent relationship with local news habits, other types of qualities that one might expect to be associated with these habits show more mixed relationships. How active people are in local groups and political activities, for example, corresponds primarily with their interest in and intake of local news, […]
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