Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
In a week that exposed dramatically different news agendas between social and mainstream media, online commentators shifted away from the King of Pop to focus on a 30-year-old technological breakthrough and the death of an offbeat TV celebrity. The most viewed YouTube video captured an impromptu cell phone snafu.
The online community focused on two primary subjects last week – the passing of singer Michael Jackson and the continuing unrest in Iran. The reaction to the King of Pop’s death, along with stunning video of an Iranian woman referred to as “Neda,” demonstrated again not only the power of social media but the range of its use.
Some 69% of Americans have used the internet to cope with the recession as they hunt for bargains, jobs, ways to upgrade their skills, better investment strategies, housing options, and government benefits.
The intensifying protests and political ferment inside Iran eclipsed some major domestic stories in the U.S. news agenda last week. And as the mainstream press confronted daunting restrictions on coverage, an outpouring of social media reports—but not all from Twitter—helped drive the Iran narrative.
Americans have used multiple sources to try to make sense of what is happening in the general economy. Just as people have options in getting material that helps them cope with stressful circumstances, they also can consult a variety of sources as they try to understand what has happened to the economy and the policies […]
As usual, there are more readers and listeners than writers and creators. Health care, including online health research, is a social activity. Since 2002, Pew Internet Project surveys consistently find that about half of online health inquiries are on behalf of someone else, be it a family member, friend, or someone else. In addition, two-thirds […]
Top recession-related searches focus on consumer bargains, new jobs, skills upgrading, chances to earn extra cash, and general news about the economy
Overview As the Pew Internet Project documented in its “Home Broadband 2009” report, African Americans trail the national average in broadband access at home, and have experienced below-average growth in home broadband adoption the past two years. Some 46% of African Americans report having broadband at home in April 2009, up slightly from 43% in […]