Americans’ Complicated Relationship With News
Most people believe Americans have a civic responsibility to be informed when they vote. But far fewer say regularly following news is extremely or very important.
Most people believe Americans have a civic responsibility to be informed when they vote. But far fewer say regularly following news is extremely or very important.
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Summary of Findings The public continued to show strong interest last week in news about the shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., though the story did not dominate media coverage as it had one week earlier. More than four-in-ten Americans (44%) say they followed news about the aftermath of the Jan. 8 shootings more closely than […]
Summary of Findings Most Americans say they plan to watch President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. Still, a sizable majority sees the speech to Congress as no more important than in previous years. In the latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Jan. 20-23 among […]
Bipartisan Praise for Obama Memorial Speech
Summary of Findings Though the new Congress convened in Washington last week, Americans focused most closely on news about the nation’s economy – until they heard about Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., that left six dead and a congresswoman fighting for her life. At that point, the shootings became the public’s top story. Before […]
Summary of Findings A series of major breaking stories captured the attention of both the public and the media in 2010, while news about the nation’s struggling economy consistently attracted high levels of public interest and coverage throughout the year. Each week, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducts national public […]
Overview The internet is slowly closing in on television as Americans’ main source of national and international news. Currently, 41% say they get most of their news about national and international news from the internet, which is little changed over the past two years but up 17 points since 2007. Television remains the most widely […]
Summary of Findings The 9/11 terrorist attacks drew more public interest than any other story in the past decade. In October 2001, a month after the attacks, 78% said they were following news about the story very closely, up slightly from the week after the attacks (74%). The devastating hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast […]
Summary of Findings Two major disasters – the earthquake in Haiti and the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico – captured the public’s attention more than any other major stories in 2010, but Americans also kept a consistent eye on the nation’s struggling economy. In mid-January, 60% of the public said they were following […]
Interest in WikiLeaks Down
U.S. adults largely value journalists’ role in society but see their influence declining – and they differ over what a journalist is.
Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to both use and trust many major news sources.
Far fewer are hearing about the administration’s relationship with the media than was the case early in President Donald Trump’s first term.
This study explores the makeup of the social media news influencer universe, including who they are, what content they create and who their audiences are.