Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

News Habits & Media

fact sheet

Social Media and News Fact Sheet

Overall, about half of U.S. adults (53%) say they at least sometimes get news from social media, roughly stable over the last few years. Facebook and YouTube outpace all other social media sites as places where Americans regularly get news.

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    Public Tracking Health Care, Deadly Mine Accident

    Summary of Findings Americans continued to track news about the new health care law more closely than any other major story last week, though the media devoted the most attention to the deadly explosion in a West Virginia coal mine—and just 3% of coverage to health care reform. A third of the public (33%) says […]

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    Public Remains Focused on Health Care Reform

    Summary of Findings Americans say they tracked news about the newly enacted health care reform law more closely than other major news stories last week, though the health care debate did not dominate coverage as it had during the final votes in Congress late last month. Close to half the public (48%) followed news about […]

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    Health Care Debate Tops Public Interest, Coverage

    Summary of Findings The long-running debate over health care reform continued to dominate public attention and media coverage last week as the final skirmishes played out on Capitol Hill and President Obama set out to promote the newly-enacted law. Two-thirds of Americans (66%) say they followed the health care debate more closely than any other […]

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    Religion in the News: 2009

    Pope Benedict XVI and the Obama administration generated the most religion-related coverage in the U.S. press in 2009. The pope, though he made no visits to the United States last year, was the subject of two of the top 10 religion stories, while the Obama administration accounted for three of the top 10 religion-focused storylines […]

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    Health Care Finale: Heavy Coverage, Huge Interest

    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 […]

Signature Reports

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Pew Research Center illustration for America's News Influencers report; photos via Getty Images

America’s News Influencers

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.