2010 Publications

Cash for Content Online
30 Dec 10Nearly two-thirds of internet users have paid to download or access online content, ranging from music to games to news articles.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Public's Top Stories of the Decade -- 9/11 and Katrina
30 Dec 10The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 drew more public interest than any other story in the past decade. The 2005 hurricanes in the Gulf, high gasoline prices and the collapse of the economy in 2008 also grabbed overwhelming public attention.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

2010 Poll Findings that Will Matter in 2011
30 Dec 10On issues ranging from the rising power of China to the desirability of bipartisan cooperation and the outlook for the nation's future, Americans expressed views over the course of the past year that are likely to have consequences for the future course of U.S. policy and governance.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blogs: [Acronym Deleted]
29 Dec 10WikiLeaks has captured attention on blogs in a way few stories ever do. But this week's online conversation mostly centered on the name of a CIA panel investigating the controversy, which resulted in an acronym commonly used in internet slang.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mobile Politics 2010
28 Dec 10More than a quarter of American adults used their cell phones to learn about or participate in the 2010 midterm election campaign.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Top Stories of 2010: Haiti Earthquake, Gulf Oil Spill
21 Dec 10Two major disasters 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.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Intense Economic Coverage Continues
21 Dec 10The tax bill drove last week's economic coverage, accounting for about two-thirds of it. A Virginia judge's ruling put health care policy back in the news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Census 2010: Apportionment Basics
20 Dec 10The first numbers from the 2010 Census are the state population totals, the basis of the proportional division of seats in the House of Representatives since the nation's early days. The number of House seats has been fixed at 435 since 1913, but there have been numerous tweaks in the methodology used to divide them up -- and debate continues today.
Social & Demographic Trends

Baby Boomers Approach Age 65 -- Glumly
Survey Findings about America's Largest Generation
20 Dec 10Perched on the front stoop of old age, Baby Boomers are more downbeat than other age groups about the trajectory of their own lives and about the direction of the nation as a whole.
Social & Demographic Trends

Cell Phone Challenge for the Census
17 Dec 10A newly released General Accounting Office review of Census Bureau follow-up efforts to reduce errors in the 2010 Census raises an issuefamiliar to survey researchers: How to reach the growing share of Americans who only have cell phones and not landlines.
Social & Demographic Trends

Splitting Blogs Over Tax Policy
16 Dec 10Liberal bloggers split over the tax deal, while conservative commentators mostly applauded the agreement but gave little praise to Obama.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Generations Online in 2010
16 Dec 10Even in online pursuits still dominated by Millennials -- such as social networking use -- older generations are making notable gains.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Global Publics Embrace Social Networking
Computer and Cell Phone Usage Up Around the World
15 Dec 10Although still a relatively young technology, social networking is already a global phenomenon. A 22-nation survey finds that in regions around the world, people who use the internet are using it for social networking. Cell phone ownership and computer usage are also increasingly popular across the globe.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

For the Public, a Tough Year Ends on a Down Note
Little Progress Seen on Major Domestic Issues
15 Dec 10Consistent with the mood of the nation all year, 2010 is closing on a down note -- but not as low as in December 2008. Fully 72% are dissatisfied with national conditions, 89% rate national economic conditions as only fair or poor, and majorities or pluralities think the country is losing ground on nine of 12 major issues.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Closely Tracks Tax Deal News
14 Dec 10The debate over taxes and the economy grabbed the public's attention more than most Washington policy discussions. Republicans are more likely than Democrats or independents to say they followed news closely.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Weigh Tax Deal
14 Dec 10News coverage was dominated last week by the tax deal between Obama and congressional Republicans. The tax debate accounted for a whopping 77% of the airtime studied on the cable and radio talk shows.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Reagan's Recession
14 Dec 10In the depths of the 1981-1982 recession, Americans were far more displeased with their president and his policies than were their predecessors during the Great Depression, more so even than in today's high-unemployment economy.
Pew Research Center

How a Different America Responded to the Great Depression
14 Dec 10The American public's sour mood is in interesting contrast with many of the public's views during the Great Depression of the 1930s, not only on economic, political and social issues, but also on the role of government in addressing them.
Pew Research Center

Tax Deal Wins Broad Bipartisan Support
Liberal Democrats Are on Board
13 Dec 10The public views the tax agreement between Obama and congressional Republicans as beneficial to both the economy and their personal finances. There are virtually no partisan differences in opinions about the agreement.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blogs and Twitter Talk WikiLeaks
9 Dec 10WikiLeaks was a popular topic across social media, but while blogs stayed political, Twitter users focused on the technological and international aspects of the story. The death of actor Leslie Neilsen, drew equal attention on blogs.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Deficit Solutions Meet With Public Skepticism
Consensus in Principle, Resistance in Practice
9 Dec 10While an overwhelming number of Americans deem the deficit a major problem that must be dealt with now, few are willing to support specific proposals to address the issue. On dealing with the deficit, Obama has more credibility than Republican congressional leaders.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Who Tweets?
9 Dec 10When asked specifically if they are on Twitter, rather than a generic status-updating site, 8% of online adults say they use the popular social media tool. Tweeting is especially popular among young adults, minorities and those who live in cities.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Public Sees WikiLeaks as Harmful
8 Dec 10Most Americans following news about the WikiLeaks's release of classified documents about U.S. diplomatic relations see the revelations doing more harm than good.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Mixed Views on Tax Cuts, Support for START and Allowing Gays to Serve Openly
7 Dec 10With the public giving subpar approval ratings to President Obama and continuing to express negative views of Congress and the political parties, it goes its own way on many of the remaining issues before the lame-duck Congress.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

WikiLeaks Data Dump Drives News
7 Dec 10Attention to the economy reached its highest level in 20 months and a major document dump cemented WikiLeaks' status as a significant newsmaker.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The 2010 U.S. Population Is ...
6 Dec 10A new Census release of five estimates of the national population illustrates the intricacies and challenges of evaluating the soon-to-be-released 2010 Census count.
Social & Demographic Trends

Muslim Networks and Movements in Western Europe
6 Dec 10Scholars discuss the purpose and findings of a major study that examines several of the oldest, largest and most influential Muslim groups operating in Western Europe today many of which are virtually unknown to non-Muslims.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Social Media Deride TSA Security Measures
2 Dec 10Anger and frustration over the new TSA airport security measures boiled over on blogs, Twitter and YouTube.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Despite Years of Terror Scares, Public's Concerns Remain Fairly Steady
2 Dec 10Since 9/11, there is little evidence that close calls in the U.S. or terrorist attacks overseas have led to a fundamental change in the public's worries about terrorism. Also, Americans are divided over whether the U.S. is winning or losing its campaign against terrorism.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Muslim Publics Divided on Hamas and Hezbollah
Most Embrace a Role for Islam in Politics
2 Dec 10While Hamas and Hezbollah continue to receive mixed ratings from Muslim publics around the globe, opinions of al Qaeda and bin Laden are consistently negative. Meanwhile, most Muslims surveyed welcome a significant role for Islam in their countries’ politics, and most also say democracy is preferable to any other kind of government.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Voting in Foreign-Policy Oblivion
30 Nov 10While it is not unusual for foreign policy to take a back seat during difficult economic times, the absence of concern at a time when American troops are fighting a war in Afghanistan, and the threat of terrorism remains high is remarkable.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Most Continue to Favor Gays Serving Openly in Military
29 Nov 10Large majorities of Democrats and independents favor allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces. Republicans are divided, but among conservative Republicans, far more oppose than favor allowing gays to serve openly.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Economy, Elections and Pat Downs
Most Aware of Stir over Energy Drinks with Alcohol
24 Nov 10While the economy and election continued to draw the most news interest, a third of the public followed the debate over airport screening procedures. Also, most have heard about the FDA's warnings about alcoholic energy drinks.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Better-Off Online
24 Nov 10Some 95% of Americans who live in households earning $75,000 or more a year use the internet at least occasionally, compared with 70% of those in households with less income. Even among all internet users, the well-off are more likely to own and use various types of technology.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Security Stories: Economy, Airport Screening Top News
23 Nov 10Even with no major new developments, the economy remained the top story in the news. The TSA's air safety efforts also received heavy coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Rise of College Student Borrowing
22 Nov 10Graduates who received a bachelor's degree in 2008 borrowed 50% more (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than their counterparts who graduated in 1996.
Social & Demographic Trends

The Growing Gap between Landline and Dual Frame Election Polls
Republican Vote Share Bigger in Landline-Only Surveys
22 Nov 10A new analysis of Pew Research Center pre-election surveys conducted this year finds that support for Republican candidates was significantly higher in samples based only on landlines than in dual frame samples that combined landline and cell phone interviews. The difference in the margin among likely voters this year is about twice as large as in 2008.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Global Warming Believers Rally on Blogs
18 Nov 10The recent rise in federal worker salaries took the No.1 spot in the blogosphere, but global warming was again a hot topic. For a change it was the believers -- not the skeptics -- leading the discussion.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Knows Basic Facts about Politics, Economics, But Struggles with Specifics
Few Aware of Inflation Rate or TARP and Deficit Specifics
18 Nov 10Americans see the big picture when it comes to the changing balance of power in Washington, but is not sure which party controls which house of Congress or who the next speaker will be. Many have a good idea about the growth of the federal deficit, but the public struggles with questions about specifics of the budget, TARP and inflation.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families
18 Nov 10Americans today are less likely to be married than at any time in the nation’s history. Rates have declined for all groups, but they have fallen most sharply among those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. A new survey finds that these less-advantaged adults are more likely than others to say that economic security is an important reason to marry. Even as marriage shrinks, family remains the most important and most satisfying element in the lives of most Americans.
Social & Demographic Trends

Election Fallout Tops News Interest
17 Nov 10A stranded cruise ship vied for attention while most say they heard at least a little about the graphic warning labels for cigarette packages proposed by the FDA and a mysterious trail in the sky off the coast of Southern California.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Obama "Shellacking" Captures Coverage
16 Nov 10The media narrative last week portrayed a weakened president buffeted by events from all sides as the economy reclaimed the No. 1 spot..
Project for Excellence in Journalism

National Latino Leader? The Job is Open
15 Nov 10When asked in an open-ended question to name the person they consider "the most important Latino leader in the country today," nearly two-thirds (64%) of Latino respondents said they did not know. An additional 10% said "no one." The most frequently named individual was Sonia Sotomayor (7%).
Pew Hispanic Center

Blogs: Don't Give War a Chance
11 Nov 10Online criticism of a David Broder column produced a kind of blogosphere bipartisanship and unanimity rarely seen on crucial political and policy issues.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mixed Reactions to Republican Midterm Win, Policies
Split Opinions on How to Handle Key Issues
11 Nov 10Compared with four years ago, there is less excitement and optimism about the victorious party and its plans following the GOP's overwhelmingly successful Election Day. Also, while the public expresses more conservative views about the role of government than it did just two years ago, on major policy decisions that will arise in coming months, opinion is closely divided.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Election Results Draw Big Interest
10 Nov 10Among those who followed election results the night of the vote, fully 91% did so on television while 28% tracked the returns on the internet.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Election Returns
10 Nov 10The culmination of the 2010 midterm elections proved to be the biggest weekly story in two years, filling 57% of the newshole.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Americans Are of Two Minds on Trade
More Trade, Mostly Good; Free Trade Pacts, Not So
9 Nov 10The public wants increased trade with Canada, Japan and several other countries (China and South Korea being notable exceptions), but support for free trade agreements is at a 13-year low, and more say trade agreements have negative rather than positive impact on jobs, wages and economic growth.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Parsing Election Day Media
How the Midterms Message Varied by Platform
8 Nov 10In today's news landscape, both mainstream and new media sources shape the narrative. A new PEJ study finds that no single unified message reverberated throughout the media universe in the wake of the November 2 voting and what one learned depended largely on where one got the news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Just Checking In: 4% Share Location with Mobile Device
4 Nov 10Among online adults, 4% use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

No Late Surge in Campaign Interest
More Hear about Marijuana Initiative than Stewart-Colbert Rally
3 Nov 10The public's interest in election news did not increase in the final days of the campaign, despite heavy news coverage. While most heard at least a little about the California proposition to legalize marijuana, a majority heard nothing about the Stewart-Colbert rally.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Religion in the 2010 Elections
3 Nov 10Following voting trends, white Protestants voted overwhelmingly Republican and religiously unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly supported Democrats. But Catholic voters swung to the GOP, and Republicans made gains in all three groups.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

The Latino Vote in the 2010 Elections
3 Nov 10For the first time ever, three Latino candidates -- all of them Republicans -- won top statewide offices. Despite these GOP wins, Latino voters supported Democrats by nearly a two-to-one margin.
Pew Hispanic Center

A Clear Rejection of the Status Quo, No Consensus about Future Policies
GOP Wins Big Despite Party's Low Favorability
3 Nov 10An older and much more conservative electorate than in 2006 and 2008 propelled the Republican Party to a broad victory in the 2010 midterm elections. But the vote was more repudiation than endorsement. Views of the Republican Party are no more positive than those of the Democratic Party.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Midterms Dominate Coverage in Final Week
2 Nov 10The elections accounted for 42% of the total newshole, and filled a majority of the airtime on cable and radio.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

GOP Likely to Capture Control of House
Record Republican Engagement Drives High Turnout Forecast
31 Oct 10Republicans continue to hold a solid lead in preferences for Tuesday's midterm elections among likely voters -- enough so as to suggest they will win control of the House. The GOP owes its lead to strong backing from independents and record-levels of engagement among its partisans.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Party of Nonvoters
29 Oct 10There will almost certainly be far more nonvoters than voters this year. Nonvoters are younger, less educated and more financially stressed than likely voters. They are also significantly less Republican and more likely to approve of Obama's job performance.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Can Civilization Survive Without God?
A Conversation with Christopher and Peter Hitchens
29 Oct 10Two brothers, both authors of much discussed books on opposite sides of the question, argue over whether religion is necessary for the development and maintenance of values, ethics and order in modern day societies.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

After the Great Recession: Foreign Born Gain Jobs; Native Born Lose Jobs
29 Oct 10Immigrants are gaining jobs at a time when native-born workers continue to sustain losses. Foreign-born workers job gains may be the result of greater flexibility with regard to wages and hours of work or greater mobility. But despite rising employment, immigrants have experienced a sharp decline in earnings as well as a still substantial net loss in jobs.
Pew Hispanic Center

Blogged Comments
28 Oct 10Tea Party favorites O'Donnell and Palin generated partisan reactions in the blogosphere.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Illegal Immigration Backlash Worries, Divides Latinos
28 Oct 10About four-in-five of the nation's estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants are of Hispanic origin; a new national survey finds that Latinos are divided over what to do with these immigrants.
Pew Hispanic Center

Public Still More Interested in Economy than Elections
Mixed Ratings for Campaign Coverage
27 Oct 10The public gives mixed ratings to the media for the job they have done covering the midterms. Also, nearly half say the GOP will gain control of the House.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Wide Partisan Divide Over Global Warming
Few Tea Party Republicans See Evidence
27 Oct 10A majority of Americans say the earth is warming, but far fewer than said so in 2006. The decline has come mostly from Republicans, and very few Tea Party supporters say there is solid evidence of global warming. Also, the public is divided on the question of whether scientists themselves agree that the earth is warming.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Ride Electoral Wave
26 Oct 10The midterms accounted for 38% of the total newshole, up substantially from 28% the previous week, and registering as the No. 1 story in all five media sectors.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Midterm Snapshot: Enthusiasm For Obama Reelection Bid Greater Than For Reagan In 1982
25 Oct 10Two years ahead of the next presidential election, the public is divided (47% yes, 42% no ) over whether Barack Obama should run for a second term. However, this is better than the outlook for Ronald Reagan in August 1982
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Continued Positive Marks for Government Anti-Terror Efforts
But Many Say U.S. Has Been Lucky in Avoiding Attack
22 Oct 10The federal government continues to get positive marks for efforts to reduce the threat of terrorism although the partisan gap has reversed since the Bush years. But many Americans say luck is a big reason why the U.S. has not suffered a major attack at home since 2001.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Independent Voters vs. Unions
22 Oct 10Union members are one voting bloc that continues to strongly back their party's candidates -- the downside of that support is that labor unions have fallen out of favor with the broader public, including independents who will cast the decisive votes in this year's elections.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Is the Recession Linked to Fewer Marriages?
22 Oct 10When researchers look at possible links among social, economic and demographic trends -- such as the current recession and declining marriage rates -- they face a challenge. Two trends may be heading in the same direction, but are they related? Correlation, the statisticians frequently warn, is no guarantee of causation.
Social & Demographic Trends

Blogs Debate, Tweets Celebrate
21 Oct 10While bloggers concerned themselves with the charges of fraudulent foreclosure procedures, Twitter was immersed in cheers for the rescue of the Chilean miners.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Democrats Stirring but Fail to Match GOP Support, Engagement
Early Voting More Prevalent
21 Oct 10As the 2010 midterm elections near, Republican engagement and enthusiasm continue at record levels, outpacing even improved Democratic showings on these indicators. The growing popularity of early voting -- about a quarter of voters nationally say they plan to vote before Election Day -- gives Democrats less time to make up ground and there is no indication that their voter mobilization efforts are outmatching Republican efforts.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Chilean Miners Captivate Public News Interest
Attention to Election News Jumps
20 Oct 10While the public appears increasingly attentive to election news, far more followed news about the dramatic rescue in Chile.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Indians See Threat From Pakistan, Extremist Groups
America's Image Remains Strong
20 Oct 10Most Indians have a positive opinion of President Obama and the U.S. Many see Pakistan -- and extremist groups linked to that nation -- as a threat, but most also want better relations and deeper economic ties with their neighbor and rival.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

In the Courts: Voucher Battle Redux
Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn and Arizona Department of Revenue v. Winn
19 Oct 10A coming Supreme Court case on an Arizona law allowing funds donated to religious schools to be subtracted from state taxes owed by donors could severely limit future Establishment Clause challenges.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Media Coverage Splits Between Midterms and Miners
19 Oct 10An underlying theme of political coverage was that the 2010 campaign has been distinguished by a particularly pungent brand of politics. In contrast, the uplifting story of the Chilean miners
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mobile Health 2010
18 Oct 10Among cell phone owners, 17% have used their phone to look up health information, including 29% of cell owners ages 18-29. Still, the internet plays a supplemental -- though growing -- role and mobile connectivity has not changed that.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Demographic Profiles of Latino Eligible Voters in 27 States
15 Oct 10Newly released statistical profiles provide key demographic and socioeconomic information about Latino eligible voters in 27 states. An interactive feature provides key eligible voter statistics in the nation's 50 states and the District of Columbia along with Hispanic population estimates in 435 congressional districts.
Pew Hispanic Center

Fewer Journalists Stand Out in Fragmented News Universe
More Expect GOP Takeover of the House
14 Oct 10No journalist is named by more than 5% of the public in response to an open-ended question. Also, more Americans now say that based on what they have heard or read, the GOP will win control of the House in November.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Election Blogging
14 Oct 10Each of the top five subjects in the blogosphere focused on the election or a closely related subject.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Gadget Ownership
14 Oct 10The cell phone -- by a wide margin -- is the most commonly owned piece of personal technology. Three-quarters of the public own a computer and nearly half own an mp3 player, while e-books remain a niche item. The average adult owns three of the seven gadgets asked about in the survey.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Video Calling and Video Chat
13 Oct 10Almost a fifth of American adults (19%) have tried video calling either online or via their cell phones. This translates into nearly a quarter (23%) of internet users and 7% of cell-phone owners who have participated in video calls, chats or teleconferences.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Cell Phones and Election Polls: An Update
13 Oct 10Data from Pew Research Center polling this year suggest that the landline-only bias is as large, and potentially even larger, than it was in 2008.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Midterms Coverage Doubles Economy Coverage
13 Oct 10The midterm elections have registered as the top news story for four consecutive weeks, and have accounted for fully a quarter of the overall newshole in that time, easily outdistancing the No. 2 story in that period, the economy, at 12%.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Lagging Youth Enthusiasm Could Hurt Democrats in 2010
7 Oct 10Millennials continue to be among the strongest backers of Democratic candidates this fall, though their support for the Democratic Party has slipped since 2008. But young voters have given far less thought to the coming elections than have older voters, and this gap is larger than in previous midterms.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blogs Take Test of Faith
7 Oct 10Pew Forum's religious knowledge survey was the No. 1 topic on blogs last week. A majority of bloggers celebrated news that atheists and agnostics scored the best.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Shifting Perceptions of Economic Coverage
Election Interest: Press Still Far Ahead of Public
7 Oct 10Perceptions of media coverage of the economy since October 2008 vary dramatically by party. Also, the press are still far more interested in the midterms than the public.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Reversal of the College Marriage Gap
The Less-Educated Are Now Less Likely to Say "I Do"
7 Oct 10In a reversal of long-standing marital patterns, college-educated young adults are now slightly more likely than young adults lacking a bachelor's degree to have married by the age of 30.
Social & Demographic Trends

Gay Marriage Gains More Acceptance
Majority Continues to Favor Gays Serving Openly in Military
6 Oct 10For the first time in 15 years of Pew Research Center polling, fewer than half oppose same-sex marriage, though, support (42%) remains below opposition (48%). The shift in favor of gay marriage has been broad-based, occurring across many demographic, political and religious groups.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Possible Negatives for Candidates: Vote for Bank Bailout, Palin Support
6 Oct 10Two factors have emerged as major potential negatives for congressional candidates: TARP and Sarah Palin. Americans are split over whether they are more likely to vote for candidates who supported the health care law.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

For the Media, it's the Elections, Stupid
5 Oct 10The midterms were a quarter of the newshole last week, and have been the third most covered story of the year, behind only the economy and the Gulf oil spill.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Latinos and the 2010 Elections
Strong Support for Democrats; Weak Voter Motivation
5 Oct 10In a year when support for Democratic candidates has eroded, the party's standing among Latinos appears as strong as ever. However, Hispanic voters appear to be less motivated than others to go to the polls.
Pew Hispanic Center

Democrats Struggle to Avoid Wipeout from Electoral Wave
5 Oct 10Less than two years ago, Democrats basked in the glow of an impressive political triumph. Today, they are contemplating the very real prospect of losing their House majority. What happened?
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Most See Washington Dominated By Partisan Conflict
Lower Ratings for Leaders of Both Parties in Congress
4 Oct 10One month before the midterm elections, Americans offer harsh judgments on Republicans and Democrats in Washington with roughly three-quarters saying partisans have been bickering more than usual and approval ratings for leaders of both parties in Congress matching long-time lows.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Bloggers War over 'Obama's Wars'
30 Sep 10Many bloggers seized on a passage from Woodward's book to argue that the president is indifferent to whether America is attacked by terrorists again.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Elections: High Coverage, Low Public Interest
Few Have Heard A Lot About Stewart-Colbert Rally
29 Sep 10While most Americans have heard at least a little about a possible GOP takeover of the House, few have heard a lot about the GOP's "Pledge" or Stewart and Colbert's rallies in Washington.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Attention Shoppers: Online Product Research
58% of Americans Have Researched a Product or Service Online
29 Sep 10Nearly six-in-ten adults have done research online about the products and services they buy, and about a quarter have posted comments or reviews online about the things they buy.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Midterms Already Edging Out the Economy on Media Agenda
28 Sep 10The midterms dominated the news agenda for the second week in a row. The elections have been the top story for the last two months (edging out the economy), and attention will only grow as November nears.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey
28 Sep 10Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Obama Viewed as Doing Better than GOP Leaders in Explaining Vision
27 Sep 10With just over a month to go before the midterm elections, the latest Congressional Connection poll finds that the public by a wide margin says Barack Obama has done a better job than Republican congressional leaders in explaining his plans and vision for the country.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Static America: A Contrarian View of Current U.S. Public Opinion Trends
Special to the Pew Research Center
27 Sep 10With predictions of a wave of Republican victories come the November elections, there has been talk of a sea change in American politics. While acknowledging that changes in political and economic conditions can produce substantial shifts in the partisan makeup of governments at all levels, the author, a long time Pew Research consultant, argues that such transformations are rarely the product of major shifts in basic American values.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Special to the Pew Research Center

Tech Times: Media Coverage of Technology
27 Sep 10Much of the coverage of technology in the mainstream press split into competing story lines: that it makes life easier and that it is not secure. Social media, however, had a more positive focus on technological advancements. With regard to corporations, Apple was more covered than Google.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

One Recession, Two Americas
Those Who Lost Ground Slightly Outnumber Those Who Held Their Own
24 Sep 10For a narrow majority of Americans (55%), the Great Recession brought a mix of unemployment, missed mortgage or rent payments, shrinking paychecks and shattered household budgets. But for the other 45%, the recession was largely free of such difficulties.
Social & Demographic Trends

Tech-Filled Tweets
23 Sep 10New developments in the online worlds of Twitter, Google, and Facebook dominated Twitter feeds last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Independents Oppose Party in Power ... Again
More Conservative, More Critical of National Conditions
23 Sep 10For the third national election in a row, independent voters may be poised to vote out the party in power. Political independents now favor GOP candidates by about as large a margin as they backed Barack Obama in 2008. The "independent vote," however, is in no way monolithic; this is not surprising given that most independents are recent refugees from the two major parties.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How You Feel About Midterms Depends on Your Party
GOP More Engaged, Optmistic, Angry About Elections
22 Sep 10Republicans are more likely to say this year's election is more important than most and that news coverage of politics makes them angry. They are also more upbeat about their preferred candidates' chances in November than are Democrats or independents.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Brazilians Upbeat About Their Country, Despite Its Problems
Most See Brazil as Rising Power
22 Sep 10At a time when global publics are mostly glum, half of Brazilians say they are satisfied with national conditions, and 62% say their economy is in good shape. Most also see their country as a rising global power.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Midterms Top News Agenda
Christine O'Donnell the Week's Leading Newsmaker
21 Sep 10Christine O'Donnell, the week's leading newsmaker, fueled the biggest week yet for coverage of the midterms. The elections were the top story in all five of the media sectors studied.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Little Compromise on Compromising
20 Sep 10The latest Congressional Connection poll finds most in the public are in no mood for political compromising. Also, Americans split evenly on which political party could best handle the economy while four-in-ten say eliminating tax cuts for the wealthy would hurt the economy.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Taxed Enough Already?
Despite Anti-Government Sentiment, More Americans Say They Pay a Fair Share of Taxes
20 Sep 10Despite all the animosity aimed at Washington, one usual political punching bag is actually not seen as villainous as it once was: taxes. More say they pay about the right amount in taxes than say they pay more than their fair share.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Religious Beliefs and Political Issues
17 Sep 10Religious beliefs continue to be influential in shaping some Americans' views about social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Far fewer cite religion as a top influence on issues such as immigration, the environment and poverty.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Blogs Talk Iraq, Rugs
16 Sep 10One-quarter of the news links on blogs were about the war in Iraq. Nearly as many bloggers focused their attention on the new rug in the Oval Office.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Muslim Networks and Movements in Western Europe
16 Sep 10The Muslim population in Western Europe has grown from less than 10 million in 1990 to approximately 17 million. A new report profiles some of the oldest, largest and most influential religious networks and movements affecting Islamic relations in Europe.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Public Focused on Tensions over Islam
Partisans Divide over Media Coverage of Obama
15 Sep 10As the nation marked the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks last week, many in the public and the media focused more on current tensions over Islam in America.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Walking Away
A Third of Public Says It’s Sometimes OK for Homeowners to Stop Making Mortgage Payments
15 Sep 10Nearly six-in-ten Americans say it is “unacceptable” for homeowners to stop making their mortgage payments, but more than a third say the practice of “walking away” from a home mortgage is acceptable under certain circumstances. Homeowners whose home values declined during the recession and those who have spent time unemployed are more likely to say that “walking away” from a mortgage is acceptable.
Social & Demographic Trends

Anti-Muslim Sentiment Makes News
14 Sep 10Coverage of a pastor's plans to burn the Koran and the controversy over the planned Islamic center completely overshadowed coverage of Sept. 11 commemorations.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Rise of the 'Apps Culture'
14 Sep 10While cell phone apps are popular among a segment of the adult cell phone using population, a notable number of cell owners are not yet a part of the emerging apps culture. But those who do download and use apps do so fairly frequently. Popular apps include entertainment (games, music, etc.) as well as those that provide information (maps, weather).
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Mixed Views of GOP Proposals on Entitlements
GOP Still Viewed as Leaderless -- Even by Republicans
14 Sep 10While a majority of Americans favors allowing changes to Social Security, there is very little support for replacing Medicare with a voucher system. Also, the public continues to see no clear leader atop the GOP.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Americans Spending More Time Following the News
Ideological News Sources: Who Watches and Why
12 Sep 10Americans are increasingly integrating new technologies into their news consumption habits. As a result, the average time spent with the news is as high as it was in the mid-1990s.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Since the Start of the Great Recession, More Children Raised by Grandparents
9 Sep 10One child in 10 in the U.S. lives with a grandparent, a share that increased slowly and steadily over the past decade before rising sharply from 2007 to 2008, the first year of the Great Recession. About 40% of all children who live with a grandparent (or grandparents) are also being raised primarily by that grandparent.
Social & Demographic Trends

Views of Economic News Little Changed
Democrats See Their Party Retaining House Controll
9 Sep 10The public's perceptions of economic news remain mixed, but continue to be much more negative than they were earlier this year.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Bloggers Debate Growth of Government
9 Sep 10Almost a third of the news links on blogs were to an article reporting that one-in-six Americans are on government assistance programs like Medicare.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Hurricane Earl Spares East Coast, But Hits Media
8 Sep 10The huge storm triggered FEMA warnings, evacuations and at times, near apocalyptic media coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Turks Downbeat About Their Institutions
Even Military Less Well-Regarded
7 Sep 10Confidence in Turkish institutions and leaders -- including the military, religious leaders, and the prime minster -- has declined over the last few years. And Turks continue to express largely negative views of major world powers.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Blogs Continue Islamic Center Debate
2 Sep 10Bloggers on both sides of the issue took part in a discussion that was as much about the motives of those having the argument as the Islamic center itself.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Most 'Re-employed' Workers Say They're Overqualified for Their New Job
2 Sep 10Workers who suffered a spell of unemployment during the recession are, on average, less satisfied with their new jobs than workers who didn’t. These re-employed workers also are more likely to consider themselves over-qualified for their current position. And six-in-ten say they changed careers or seriously thought about it while they were unemployed.
Social & Demographic Trends

Glenn Beck, Christians and Mormons
2 Sep 10In contrast to the Beck's comments, it's incorrect to say that “most” Christians do not view Mormons as Christians. However, many have mixed views about Mormonism.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Adults, Cell Phones and Texting
2 Sep 10Adults are increasingly using text messages to communicate, but they still text far less than teenagers, who send and receive, on average, five times more texts per day than adult texters.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Public Divided Over Tone of Mosque Fight
1 Sep 10Among those who see the debate as rude and disrespectful, most say opponents of the Islamic center are mostly to blame.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

U.S. Unauthorized Immigration Flows Are Down Sharply Since Mid-Decade
1 Sep 10The annual inflow of unauthorized immigrants to the U.S. was nearly two-thirds smaller in the March 2007 to March 2009 period than it had been from March 2000 to March 2005. This decline contributed to an overall 8% reduction in the unauthorized immigrant population, which fell to 11.1 million in 2009 from 12 million in 2007. The decrease represents the first significant reversal in the growth of this population over the past two decades.
Pew Hispanic Center

Politics Tops Media Agenda, Again
31 Aug 10The midterm elections led the week's news for the second time in three weeks.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama's Middle East Problem
27 Aug 10While global publics largely take a positive view of the president's leadership and foreign policy, he receives his lowest marks on dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- and his ratings on this issue are especially negative in the Arab nations of the Middle East.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Older Adults and Social Media
27 Aug 10The number of older adults on Facebook and other social networking sites has roughly doubled in the past year. About half of internet users ages 50-64 and one-in-four users ages 65 and older now log onto social networks.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Blogs Debate New York Mosque
26 Aug 10Debate over the mosque controversy raged online again, but in contrast to last week, bloggers in support of the Islamic center lead the discussion.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Five Years After Hurricane Katrina
Progress Seen in New Orleans; Nation Not Prepared for Natural Disaster
26 Aug 10Most Americans say that the nation is no better prepared for hurricanes and other natural disasters than it was in 2005. However, the public does see progress in rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf region.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

New York Islamic Center Debate Tops Coverage, But Not News Interest
More Republicans than Democrats, Independents Track Mosque Story
25 Aug 10More than four-in-ten Republicans (44%) say they followed news about the mosque debate very closely, compared with 28% each of Democrats and independents.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How the Media Covered the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster
25 Aug 10The disaster in the Gulf dominated the news for the 100 days following the initial rig explosion. A media analysis finds the mainstream press spent considerable time reporting from the region and humanizing the crisis.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Remains Conflicted Over Islam
24 Aug 10Favorable views of Islam have declined since 2005, but a plurality still says Islam does not encourage violence more than other religions. More Americans agree with those who object to the building of the center in New York, but a majority also say that Muslims should have the same rights as other religious groups to build houses of worship.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Islamic Center Tops Media Agenda
24 Aug 10The controversy over a New York Islamic center dominated ideologically driven talk shows on both cable TV and radio -- but registered barely a blip in mainstream newspapers.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Not Neutral on Google
19 Aug 10Bloggers roundly criticized Google for seemingly softening its support of network neutrality -- the concept of treating all internet traffic equally across a network.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Many Say Coverage of the Poor and Minorities Is Too Negative
News about Whites, Middle-Class Mostly Seen as Fair
19 Aug 10Pluralities say that coverage of poor people and Muslims is too negative, while somewhat smaller percentages say the same about coverage of blacks and Hispanics. About a third say that coverage of wealthy people is too positive -- the highest percentage for any group tested.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Fading Glory of the Television and Telephone
19 Aug 10The TV and the landline phone are both losing their cachet in the digital age, as fewer consider them necessities. But while phones are being dumped, Americans are stocking up on ever more television sets -- especially the big flat ones
Social & Demographic Trends

Growing Number of Americans Say Obama is a Muslim
Religion, Politics and the President
19 Aug 10More than a year into his presidency, 18% of Americans say that Barack Obama is a Muslim. A plurality say they do not know what religion he follows. The view that president is a Muslim is highest among his political opponents. Yet the public also generally says Obama handles his religious beliefs appropriately.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Campaign Coverage Heats Up
Oil Spill Coverage Reaches New Low
17 Aug 10The midterm elections led the news last week. For the first time since the crisis began in late April the Gulf oil spill was not among the top three topics reported on in the media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Applaud Gay Marriage Victory
12 Aug 10More than a quarter of the news links on blogs were about the Proposition 8 decision. The commentary was overwhelmingly positive.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mexicans Continue Support for Drug War
But Sense of Progress and Support for U.S. Involvement Declines
12 Aug 10Mexicans overwhelmingly continue to endorse President Calderón's campaign against the drug cartels and most -- though somewhat fewer than a year ago -- see progress in the drug war. But opposition to direct U.S. involvement has increased, and Mexican views of the U.S. generally turned negative following passage of the recent Arizona immigration law.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Religion in the 2008 Presidential Election
An Analysis of 2008 Exit Polls
11 Aug 10An analysis of newly released exit poll data finds that Barack Obama succeeded in attracting a larger share of the vote among some religious groups than John Kerry did in 2004. The contours of religion and politics, however, were largely the same in 2008 as in 2004.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Unauthorized Immigrants and Their U.S.-Born Children
11 Aug 10Unauthorized immigrants comprise about 4% of the adult population, but their children make up a much larger share of both the newborn population (8%) and the overall child population (7% of those younger than age 18) in this country.
Pew Hispanic Center

More Hearing Good News About Gulf Spill
Views of Economic News Little Changed
11 Aug 10Perceptions of news about the oil leak have become somewhat more positive, while views of economic news remain mixed. About one-in-five track news about the overturn of California's gay marriage ban and the planned Islamic cultural center in New York.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Broadband 2010: A Big Slowdown
11 Aug 10Broadband adoption slowed dramatically in 2010 across a range of demographic groups with African Americans a major exception. But 53% of Americans don't place a high priority on government efforts to spread high-speed access.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

The Vote for Congress: GOP Fares Better with Whites, Men, Independents and Seniors
Who's Moving, Who's Staying: 2006-2010
10 Aug 10While voter preferences for the midterm elections remain closely divided, Republicans now enjoy advantages among typically loyal voting blocs that wavered in 2006 and are doing better with key swing groups. Americans who intend to vote GOP this fall are also far more engaged in the campaign this year.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Job Numbers Boost Economic Coverage
Gulf Spill Coverage Continues to Dwindle
10 Aug 10The jobs situation accounted for more than a third of all the economy-related news. Also, with little oil leaking, coverage of the Gulf reaches a low.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Technology Concerns Dominate Twitter
Chevrolet Volt Discussed on Blogs
5 Aug 10Two consumer-related technology topics dominated on Twitter last week -- privacy concerns on Facebook and user rights with Apple's iPhone device.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Journalism Jobs Harder to Find
5 Aug 10A University of Georgia survey of recent journalism and mass communication graduates finds toughest job market in the 24-year history of the study. Minority graduates have had an especially difficult time finding work. In regards to being prepared for communications work, graduates give their schools mixed grades.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Federal Court Strikes Down California Same-Sex Marriage Ban
5 Aug 10A federal district court judge struck down California’s ban on gay marriage, ruling that the prohibition violates the U.S. Constitution. The decision, which is expected to be appealed, represents the first time a federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to marry.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

The Invisible Court
3 Aug 10While legal scholars analyze Kagan's possible impact on the "Roberts court," most Americans have no idea who "Roberts" is. And as experts debate if the court has become more conservative, the public sees the court moving in the opposite direction.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Mixed Public Reaction to WikiLeaks
Most Say Too Much Chelsea Clinton Coverage
3 Aug 10About equal percentages say the release of classified documents about the war in Afghanistan harms the public interest as say it serves the public interest. Most say Chelsea Clinton's wedding received too much attention from the press.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

WikiLeaks Puts Afghanistan Back on Media Agenda
Immigration Dominates Cable News
3 Aug 10The leak of some 90,000 classified war reports triggered a renewed debate over war strategy in Afghanistan. With court action in Arizona, the immigration debate dominated cable news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Earmarks Could Help Candidates in Midterms; Palin and Tea Party Connections Could Hurt
Energy: Public Backs a Wide Range of Goals, Policies
2 Aug 10Across party lines, the public sees earmarking by their congressional candidates as more of an asset than a liability. Americans are divided on the value of Obama in November, while both Palin's support and Tea Party affiliation are seen by more as negative than positive. On energy, public backs a wide range of goals and policies.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blogs Discover, Discuss Altered BP Photo
29 Jul 10A blogger's discovery of BP's altered photo of its crisis center was the top story in the blogosphere. Also, many blogs linking to a column bemoaning the loss of the traditional newsroom agreed with the author.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Opinion in Pakistan: Concern About Extremist Threat Slips
America's Image Remains Poor
29 Jul 10Pakistanis have grown markedly less concerned about extremist groups, and are far more worried about the external threat from India. America's image remains negative and support for U.S. involvement in the fight against extremists has waned. Many Pakistanis endorse extreme views about law, religion and society.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Sherrod Story: Heavy Coverage, Modest Interest
More Now Say "Too Much" Oil Leak Coverage
28 Jul 10Despite heavy coverage of the Shirley Sherrod affair, the oil leak in the Gulf was by far the public's most closely followed news story.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How Young Latinos Communicate with Friends in the Digital Age
28 Jul 10While they still trail their non-Latino counterparts, young Latinos make extensive use of mobile technology. But use of cell phones and text messages differs notably among young Hispanics by nativity.
Pew Hispanic Center

Latino Digital Divide: Native Born vs. Foreign Born
27 Jul 10While rates of internet and cell phone use among native-born Hispanics are relatively high, technology use for the full population of Hispanics continues to lag behind the use rates of the non-Hispanic population.
Pew Hispanic Center

Economy Still Tops News Agenda
Shirley Sherrod the Top Newsmaker of the Week
27 Jul 10For four days, Shirley Sherrod consumed 41% of the cable news airtime, helping her become the top newsmaker of the week. The Washington Post's series on gathering intelligence sparked a debate, and demonstrated a new media trend.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Story of Shirley Sherrod: Reconstruction of a Media Mess
How One Video Triggered a Rush to Judgment
27 Jul 10A media analysis of the Shirley Sherrod story traces how the story evolved and played out in the media in that frantic period between the July 19 release of the video and the July 21 apologies to Sherrod from Gibbs and Vilsack as well as Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama's Policies Seen as Better than Bush's for Improving the Economy
Both Parties Doing Poor Job Working Together, Offering Solutions
26 Jul 10As Congress gears up for debate over the tax cuts passed when Bush was president, the public is divided, with roughly equal numbers in favor of keeping all of Bush's tax cuts, repealing only those for wealthy Americans, or scrapping them entirely.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media, Race and Obama's First Year
A Study of African Americans in U.S. News Coverage
26 Jul 10A year-long study finds that, as a group, African Americans attracted relatively little attention in the U.S. mainstream news media during the first year of Barack Obama's presidency -- and what coverage there was tended to focus more on specific episodes than on broader issues and trends affecting the lives of blacks generally.
Project for Excellence in Journalism and Social & Demographic Trends

Polls, iPhones and Panic
23 Jul 10Bloggers seized on Obama's poll numbers while tweeters took on Apple's newest gadget. Both social media tools took an interest in their online cousin: Facebook.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Lost Income, Lost Friends -- and Loss of Self-Respect
The Impact of Long-Term Unemployment
22 Jul 10A new Pew Research Center survey finds the long-term unemployed are more likely than the short-term unemployed not only to have lost income, but also to have lost contact with close friends, suffered strains in family relations and lost some self-respect and confidence in their long-term career prospects.
Social & Demographic Trends

Censuses Ignite Controversy in Canada and the U.K.
22 Jul 10The head of Statistics Canada has resigned over the government's decision to drop the mandatory long form in the 2011 Census while in the United Kingdom, next year's census may be the last in traditional form.
Social & Demographic Trends

Public Hears Better News from the Gulf
Many Expect GOP to Take House
21 Jul 10Most Americans are hearing some good news from the Gulf. On balance, more see Republicans gaining a majority in House after the fall elections.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

New Hope for Containment Boosts Coverage of Gulf Spill
20 Jul 10Largely as the result of BP's most promising effort yet to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, that ongoing environmental disaster led the week's news, generating its highest amount of coverage in three weeks.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Government Economic Policies Seen as Boon for Banks and Big Business, Not Middle Class or Poor
19 Jul 10Partisan groups disagree sharply about many aspects of the government's anti-recession policies -- with two notable exceptions: Large majorities of independents, Republicans and Democrats all say large banks and financial institutions got the most help while few in each group say the policies have done much for the poor.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Ask the Expert (continued)
19 Jul 10Senior research staff answers questions from readers relating to all the areas covered by our seven projects ranging from polling techniques and findings, to media, technology, religious, demographic and global attitudes trends.
Pew Research Center

Voters Rate Political Parties' Ideologies
16 Jul 10In broad terms, voters view the Democratic Party's ideology as the opposite of the Republican Party's: 58% say the Democratic Party is either very liberal or liberal while 56% say the GOP is either very conservative or conservative.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Political Knowledge Update
Well Known: Twitter; Little Known: TARP
15 Jul 10Pew's latest news knowledge poll finds that an overwhelming proportion of Americans can correctly identify Twitter, but relatively few know which president launched the government's bailout of banks and financial institutions.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Social Media Singe Teen Singer
15 Jul 10Both bloggers and Twitter users got caught up in an online prank played on a teenage pop star; Obama and the courts also drew attention online.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Census 2010: Statistics and Next Steps
15 Jul 10As the 2010 Census information-gathering phase winds down, Director Robert Groves offered some statistics to assess how the national count has gone thus far.
Social & Demographic Trends

Interest in Oil Leak Dips Along with Coverage
Too Much Lohan and LeBron News
14 Jul 10Large majorities say news organizations gave too much coverage last week to Lindsay Lohan's legal woes and LeBron James' announcement.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Rewriting the 'Race' Question
13 Jul 10A former Census Director also has concerns about the way the government asks about race and ethnicity.
Social & Demographic Trends

Oil Spill Leaking Coverage, but Still Tops Media Agenda
LeBron James the Second-Biggest Newsmaker of the Week
13 Jul 10Despite a substantial drop-off in recent coverage, the oil spill remains the top story. LeBron James was the second-biggest newsmaker of the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public's Wish List for Congress -- Jobs and Deficit Reduction
12 Jul 10Fully 80% say it is very important for Congress to pass legislation to address the job situation; nearly half of public disapproves of challenge to Arizona's immigration law and health care legislation.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Republicans Less Positive Toward Supreme Court
Public Views of Congress Recover Slightly
9 Jul 10Compared with July 2007, fewer people view the court as conservative and more see it as liberal. Americans are less negative toward Congress, and there has been an improvement in opinions of the Democratic Party.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Millennials' Likely Lifelong Online Sharing Habit
9 Jul 10Technology experts generally believe that today’s tech-savvy young people -- the ‘digital natives’ who are known for enthusiastically embracing social networking and other online tools -- will retain their willingness to share personal information online even as they get older and take on more responsibilities.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Little Gun Control On Blogs
8 Jul 10The online conversation was dominated by cheering advocates of a Supreme Court ruling in favor of gun rights, illustrating again how individuals who care passionately about a subject often come together quickly and strongly online.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Widespread Support for Banning Full Islamic Veil in Western Europe
Most Americans Disapprove
8 Jul 10The French public overwhelmingly endorses a ban on full Islamic veils in public places, and majorities in other Western European nations surveyed would also welcome such a ban in their countries. In contrast, most Americans would oppose prohibiting Muslim women from wearing full veils in public.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Public Increasingly Hearing Mostly Bad Economic News
Public Stays Focused on Gulf Oil Leak, Media Attention Divided
8 Jul 10Perceptions of economic news have turned much more negative in the past month, with news about jobs seen as especially dour.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Interest in Oil Spill Flagging
Kagan Deemed Not as Newsworthy as Sotomayor by Press
7 Jul 10Coverage of the Gulf oil leak has dropped by about two-thirds in the past several weeks. After a rare spike, Afghanistan news fell dramatically.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

More Cell Phone Owners Use an App for That
59% of All Adult Americans Go Online Wirelessly
7 Jul 10While cell phone ownership has remained stable, today's users are taking advantage of a much wider range of their phones' capabilities (pictures, internet, music, etc.) compared with 2009.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Should the American Community Survey Be Voluntary?
6 Jul 10Tests show that if Americans were not required by law to respond to census surveys response rates would drop significantly and the cost of obtaining reliable data would rise considerably.
Social & Demographic Trends

Canada Cuts the Long Form
2 Jul 10Statistics Canada has announced that the nation’s 2011 Census will include the same eight basic questions that were asked of everyone in the 2006 count, and that the mandatory long form will be replaced with a voluntary survey.
Social & Demographic Trends

The Future of Online Socializing
2 Jul 10The social benefits of internet use will far outweigh the negatives over the next decade, according to experts. Email, social networks, and other online tools offer low friction opportunities to create, enhance, and rediscover social ties that make a difference in people's lives and lower traditional communications constraints of cost, geography, and time.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

McChrystal’s Comments Turn the Social Media to Afghanistan
1 Jul 10Blogs and Twitter followed MSM into Afghanistan, led by fired general.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Voting Intentions Even, Turnout Indicators Favor GOP
Older Americans Eager to Vote ... Republican, That Is
1 Jul 10Voters younger than age 30 favor the Democratic candidate in their district by a wide margin (57% to 32%), yet only half of young voters say they are absolutely certain to vote. Voters ages 50 and older favor the Republican candidate in their district by double digits (11 points) and roughly eight-in-ten (79%) say they are absolutely certain to vote.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Proud Patriots -- and Harsh Critics of Government
1 Jul 10Nearly all Americans consider themselves patriotic and voice pride in being American. But many of those who voice strong patriotism and pride in the country also are highly critical of the federal government and its political leaders.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Gender Equality Universally Embraced, but Inequalities Acknowledged
1 Jul 10Almost everywhere, solid majorities express support for gender equality and agree that women should be able to work outside the home. Yet many say gender inequalities persist and that life is generally better for men in their countries.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Public, Media Track Oil Leak, Diverge On McChrystal
30 Jun 10The public remained focused on the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last week, while the media divided their attention between the oil leak and controversial comments by Gen. Stanley McChrystal that led to his ouster as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Great Recession at 30 Months
Half of Work Force Has Taken a Job-Related Hit, but Some Green Shoots of Optimism
30 Jun 10More than half (55%) of adults in the labor force say that since the economic slump began 30 months ago, they have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers; the recession has also led to a new frugality and diminished expectations about retirement and their children's future.
Social & Demographic Trends

Census 2010: Non-response Follow-up Wrapping Up
29 Jun 10Census Bureau Director Robert Groves says that census-takers are nearly done with knocking on doors of households from which 2010 Census forms were not received. Two managers fired for skipping interviews and using online data to fill out forms.
Social & Demographic Trends

Afghan War Tops the News, Edging out Oil Spill
29 Jun 10President Obama’s decision to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top battlefield commander in Afghanistan, a move freighted with military and political implications, vaulted the war to the top of the media agenda last week for the first time in seven months.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

High Court Rules Against Campus Christian Group
Decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez
28 Jun 10A divided Supreme Court has ruled, 5-4, that a public law school can deny recognition to a student group that excludes gays and lesbians. In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Court said the school could enforce a policy requiring official student organizations to accept all students who want to join.
Pew Research Center

Public Rejects Variety of Options for Fixing State Budgets
28 Jun 10Most Americans say states should solve their own budget problems -- but most also oppose cuts in education, public safety and other state programs.
Pew Research Center

More Women Without Children
25 Jun 10Nearly one-in-five American women ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one-in-ten in the 1970s. While childlessness has risen for all racial and ethnic groups, and most education levels, it has fallen over the past decade for women with advanced degrees.
Social & Demographic Trends

Oil Leak Spreads Online
24 Jun 10Twitter's most linked-to news stories tended to be more about BP executives, while blogs linked more often to news about the oil spill itself.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama's Rating Steady Despite Tough Environment
Mixed Views on Immigration Policy
24 Jun 10While facing a controversial health care bill, a high jobless rate and the largest environmental disaster in the nation's history, the president's approval rating (48%) hasn't moved this year. A majority now opposes increased offshore drilling, but a large partisan split remains. Americans back Arizona's tough immigration law, but also support a "path to citizenship."
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Sees Right Amount of Oil Leak Coverage
World Cup Interest Low
22 Jun 10As press coverage of the oil spill continues to increase, most Americans say the media are giving the right amount or too little attention to the unfolding disaster. Interest in the World Cup is low but on par with past tournaments.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Gulf Spill Goes to Washington
22 Jun 10As media coverage reached a new high, reports on the oil leak turned from cleanup, containment and impact to BP's role in the disaster and the government's ongoing response.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Sees a Future Full of Promise and Peril
Life in 2050: Amazing Science, Familiar Threats
22 Jun 10Most Americans envision a future where cancer is cured and space travel is for everyone. But they also see a world beset by war, energy shortages and a terrorist attack with nuclear weapons. Still, most see a better future for themselves and the nation over the next four decades.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Uncertain How to Improve Job Situation
21 Jun 10There is broad public agreement that past government policies intended to address the financial crisis and recession have not worked. At the same time, there is very little agreement about what the government should do now to deal with the nation’s biggest economic concern -- the job situation.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How the Press Covered Health Care Reform
21 Jun 10Media coverage of the health care debate followed a roller coaster trajectory, spiking dramatically at times and plunging at other points. The media focused far more on the politics of health care than the system or plans for reform.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Adults Text While Driving Too!
18 Jun 10Adults are just as likely as teens to have texted while driving and are substantially more likely to have talked on a cell phone while driving.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Israel Defenders Join Middle East Debate on Blogs
Poll Generates Early Midterm Discussion Online
17 Jun 10For a second consecutive week, conflict in the Middle East led the agenda in the blogosphere. But in contrast to the previous week, defenders of Israel were the loudest voices.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama More Popular Abroad than at Home, Global Image of U.S. Continues to Benefit
22-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey
17 Jun 10The president gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from the world (with the notable exception of the U.S.) for the way he has handled the world economic crisis. Obama's personal popularity remains high, as do favorable views of the U.S. In a striking difference from the Bush years, while many around the world disagree with Obama's foreign policies, the U.S. image has not been significantly dented as a result. Muslim countries, however, continue to hold a negative view of America and most also give Obama unfavorable ratings.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Public Sees No Improvement in Economic News
Gulf Oil Leak Still Tops News Interest
16 Jun 10Most Americans continue to see a mix of good and bad economic news. The Gulf oil leak still tops news interest.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Minorities and the Recession-Era College Enrollment Boom
16 Jun 10Freshman enrollment at post-secondary institutions rose by a 40-year record of 6% in the 2007-2008 school year, with Hispanics experiencing the largest increase in enrollments; half of the total increase in enrollment occurred in just 109 institutions out of nearly 6,100.
Social & Demographic Trends

Oil Spill Becoming One of the Biggest Stories of the Year
15 Jun 10The oil leak in the Gulf became the first story in 14 months to command at least 30% of the newshole for three consecutive weeks.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Fueling Both Sides of the Energy Debate
14 Jun 10Americans want expanded exploration and development of coal, oil and gas in the U.S. but also want limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Michele Obama's favorability stays strong but the president's and Sarah Palin's popularity slip.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Coverage of the Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal
11 Jun 10Newspaper coverage of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal grew more intense this spring than at any time since 2002, and European newspapers devoted even more ink to the story than American papers did.
Project for Excellence in Journalism and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

The Typical Modern Mother:
There Isn't One
11 Jun 10Today’s mothers of newborns are more likely than their counterparts two decades earlier to be ages 35 and older, to have some college education, to be unmarried or to be nonwhite -- but not all at once.
Social & Demographic Trends

The Future of Cloud Computing
11 Jun 10Technology experts and stakeholders say they expect internet users will ‘live mostly in the cloud’ in 2020 and not on the desktop, working through cyberspace-based applications accessed through networked devices.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

The Flotilla Furor Online
10 Jun 10The latest outbreak of Middle East violence triggered a passionate blogosphere response focused on who was to blame. Three out of the five most-viewed news videos on YouTube were scenes of the violence aboard the Turkish ship.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

India's Census and the Caste Question
9 Jun 10In a controversial decision, government leaders in India have agreed that the nation's 2011 census could include a tally of castes, the complex structure of traditional social classes last enumerated in 1931.
Social & Demographic Trends

Public Trusts Media for Oil Spill News More than Feds, BP
Much More Interested in Oil Leak's Impact, Not Politics
9 Jun 10For information about the Gulf, the public has far more trust in the news media than in either the government or BP. Americans are far more interested in the environmental impact of the disaster than in the response of politicians or assessments of blame for the disaster.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Neighbors Online
9 Jun 10While nearly half of Americans still talk face-to-face with their neighbors, one in five now use digital tools to communicate with neighbors and monitor community developments.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Oil Spill: Month-Long Top Story
Flotilla Incident Generates Most Israeli-Palestinian Coverage Since Gaza Fighting
8 Jun 10In the seven weeks since the explosion, the spill saga has come to overshadow every other subject in the mainstream news agenda, registering at 22% of the newshole for the period.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Doubts About Obama's Economic Policies Rose Over the Last Year
Congressional Connection Poll
8 Jun 10For the first time, slightly more say the impact of Obama's economic policies has been negative rather than positive; many see recovery as distant; views on financial reforms are mixed.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

At Long Last, Divorce
4 Jun 10The breakup of the 40-year marriage of former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper raises the intriguing question: What is the likelihood that a long-duration marriage will end in divorce? Here is a look at some relevant data.
Social & Demographic Trends

Marrying Out
One-in-Seven New U.S. Marriages is Interracial or Interethnic
4 Jun 10A record 14.6% of all new marriages in the U.S in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new census data. Of all newlyweds in 2008, 9% of whites, 16% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics and 31% of Asians married outside their race/ethnicity. Patterns also varied by region (intermarriage is most common in the West) and by gender.
Social & Demographic Trends

Seniors are Strongest Advocates for Change in 2010
3 Jun 10Older Americans have a more negative view of incumbents, are more likely to vote for a candidate with no elective experience and less likely to support those who compromise than are Americans younger than age 65.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Remains Fixated by Oil Spill
Attentiveness Similar to Just After Haiti Quake
3 Jun 10The Gulf oil spill continues to grab the public's attention. Interest in the disaster rivals attention paid to the Haiti earthquake earlier this year.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blogs Poke Facebook
Apple Leads on Twitter Again
3 Jun 10Many bloggers felt the social networking site had misled them about how their information was being used. Twitter was dominated by Apple, again.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Rights of Conscience vs. Civil Rights
Are Health Care Workers Obligated to Treat Gays and Lesbians?
3 Jun 10New "conscience protection" cases have emerged in the health care area expanding the debate beyond abortion and birth control to discrimination protection for certain groups, notably gays and lesbians.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Your New Tube: Online Video Continues to Grow
3 Jun 10With an assist from YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, 69% of internet users have watched video online. There have been dramatic increases in the viewing of comedy and political videos, as well as movies and television on the internet.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Unplugged: Media Attention to Spill Increasing
More Than Half of Television Airtime Dedicated to the Gulf Oil Spill
2 Jun 10Press coverage of the oil spill continues to rise (reaching a new high) as the oil continues to flow. As with most disasters, the Gulf proved to be, first and foremost, a TV story.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Ponder Artificial Life
27 May 10As science tends to do, the creation of living cells controlled by synthetic DNA captivated blogs. A campaign ad for the Alabama Agriculture Commission became the most watched video on YouTube.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

What Has America Talking?
26 May 10The news topics that come up frequently in conversation have changed markedly in recent years. Check out what's being traded around the nation's water coolers.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Not as Ready as Media for Elections
Americans Stay Focused on Gulf Oil Spill
26 May 10Perceptions of financial regulation are similar to views of health care reform last year: many say the issue is important, personal and interesting, but also hard to understand.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Managing Your Online Profile
How People Monitor Their Internet Identity and Search for Others Online
26 May 10Reputation management has become a defining feature of online life, especially among younger Americans. Search engines and social media sites play a central role in building one's reputation. Many have begun changing privacy settings on profiles, customizing who can see what and deleting unwanted information online.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Oil Spill and Primary Elections Top News Agendas
25 May 10Cable news devoted 33% of airtime to the elections, more than any other sector, while devoting 18% to the oil spill. In contrast, network newscasts apportioned their time in almost the reverse pattern: 13% to politics and 25% to the oil spill.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

What Kind of Candidates are Voters Looking for in November?
Neither Party Has Edge on Economy
25 May 10Americans are less likely to vote for a candidate who supported TARP, more likely to back one who compromises, and split on health care supporters. Neither party has an advantage on the economy, but the GOP has improved on several issues. Sharp rise in BP criticism over the oil spill.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Census by the Books
24 May 10Curious about how the decennial census got started and how it has evolved? Here's a short list of selected books that explore its history and the controversies surrounding the count from colonial times to the present.
Social & Demographic Trends and Social & Demographic Trends

New Media, Old Media
How Blogs and Social Media Agendas Relate and Differ from Traditional Press
23 May 10Technology makes it increasingly possible for the actions of citizens to influence a story’s total impact.What types of news stories do consumers share and discuss the most? What issues do they have less interest in? What is the interplay of the various new media platforms? And how do their agendas compare with that of the mainstream press? A review of a year's worth of data sheds light on these questions.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Assessing the Cell Phone Challenge
20 May 10With fully a quarter of the U.S. adult population now relying solely on cell phone service, pollsters and other survey researchers face a difficult decision as to whether to include cell phones in their samples. A joint study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Internet & American Life Project takes an up-to-date look at the potential biases in findings based on landline-only surveys.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Pew Internet & American Life Project

On the Blogs, Across the Pond
20 May 10In stark contrast to the mainstream U.S. press, the blogosphere -- lacking geographic boundaries -- was consumed by the British election.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Oil Spill Increases Hold on Public's News Interest
Kagan Nomination Draws Less Attention than Coverage
19 May 10While most are not following Elena Kagan, the public wants the press to focus on credentials, not personal lives, when analyzing Supreme Court nominees. Meanwhile, the oil spill continues to dominate the public's news interest.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Czechs' Commitment to Free Markets and Democracy Stays Strong Amidst Troubled Economic and Political Waters
19 May 10Despite broad dissatisfaction with their country's current economy and direction, Czechs' enthusiasm for free markets and open elections has remained strong.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Public's Priorities for Congress: Jobs and Energy Top Immigration
Congressional Connection Poll
18 May 10Congress's ratings are abysmal; Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan draws mixed ratings but half have no opinion.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Don't Leave Gulf for Kagan
18 May 10Elena Kagan's press lagged well behind the attention paid to Obama's selection of Sotomayor. The Gulf oil spill remained big news for the fourth consecutive week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blog Blame Game
13 May 10Bloggers searched for political villains in the wake of the oil spill and failed terrorist attack.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Hispanics and the GED
13 May 10Hispanics have a much higher high school dropout rate than do blacks or whites, but far fewer obtain GEDs. Among dropouts, however, native-born Hispanics are four times more likely than foreign born to have a GED, and as likely as African American dropouts.
Pew Hispanic Center

Oil Tops Terror in Public Attention
Media Focuses More On Times Square
12 May 10Americans followed the worsening oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico more closely than other major news stories last week, while the media focused on both the underwater oil leak and the investigation into the attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square. The public sees little change in the tenor of recent economic news.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity: A Conversation With Tariq Ramadan
12 May 10What can Western Muslims do to balance faith and modernity? What lies ahead for the future of Islam in Europe, the U.S. and the rest of the world? A controversial Muslim scholar discusses these and related topics.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Public Supports Arizona Immigration Law
Democrats Divided, But Support Provisions
12 May 10A majority approves of the new law, and larger percentages support requiring people to produce identification documents for police and allowing authorities to detain people unable to verify their legal status.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Oil Spill Seen As Ecological Disaster
BP and Government Responses Faulted
11 May 10Americans are critical of the government's response to the environmental disaster in the Gulf, but even more so of BP. Support for offshore oil drilling is down, though Republican opinion is unchanged.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Terrorism Tops Disasters
11 May 10Coverage of the Times Square car bomb attempt became the biggest single terrorism story since January 2007; Gulf oil spill coverage up but Tennessee flooding got little attention
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Aliens
6 May 10Debate over a visit to earth by alien beings was the only news item to receive significant attention on both the blogs and Twitter.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The New Demography of American Motherhood
6 May 10Compared with mothers of newborns in 1990, today's new moms are older, better educated and less likely to be white. A record 41% of births were to unmarried women; but most continue say this is bad for society.
Social & Demographic Trends

Oil Spill Disaster Has Public's Attention
Most Have Basic Knowledge About Spill, Arizona Immigration Law
5 May 10About eight-in-ten Americans know that oil leak is off the coast of Louisiana and that the controversial immigration law was passed in Arizona; less than half know about Charlie Crist.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

United We Stand ... on Technology
5 May 10Americans are widely dissatisfied not only with government but with most major institutions. One notable exception: the technology industry.
Pew Research Center

The Semantic Web
5 May 10Technology experts and stakeholders are divided over whether a world in which software agents carry out sophisticated tasks for users is on the immediate horizon.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

"Socialism" Not So Negative, "Capitalism" Not So Positive
A Political Rhetoric Test
4 May 10Reactions to words and phrases frequently used in political discourse reveal some surprises: Among the young, "capitalism" and "socialism" are rated about equally; "militia" scores poorly among all groups.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Wall Street, Oil Spill & Immigration Uproars
4 May 10Fueled by a congressional showdown with Goldman Sachs executives, economic news led news coverage during a crowded week that also featured the uproar over Arizona's new immigration law and the developing ecological disaster in the Gulf Coast.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Supreme Court Rules on Religious Display
A Cross in a National Park Can Stay, For Now
29 Apr 10The court overturned a lower court ruling that had ordered the removal of a cross from a World War I memorial located in California’s Mojave National Preserve.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Eyjafjallajoekull Effect
29 Apr 10A good deal of the commentary included individual experiences from bloggers directly affected by the grounded fights. Plus, promiscuous clothing as cause of earthquakes.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Hispanics and Arizona's New Immigration Law
29 Apr 10Past Pew Research Center reports have found that Latinos are the ethnic group most likely to be illegal immigrants and that Americans see Hispanics as the racial/ethnic group most often subjected to discrimination. Find more demographic and public opinion research related to the new Arizona law in a just-released fact sheet.
Pew Hispanic Center

Financial Regulation and Volcano Ash Grab Public's Attention
Public Sees Some Payback of Federal Bailout Money
28 Apr 10Most Americans say financial institutions have paid back "only some" of the money provided by the federal government to help them survive the financial crisis.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Pessimistic Public Doubts Effectiveness of Stimulus, TARP
Republicans Draw Even With Democrats on Most Issues
28 Apr 10As has been the case for most of the past two years, about nine-in-ten rate national economic conditions as only fair or poor. As a political consequence, the Democratic Party has lost ground to the Republican Party on a wide range of issues, including the job situation.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Economic Rally
27 Apr 10Fraud and possible reform on Wall Street generated the most economic news of the year. Heated cable news debate over Arizona's new immigration law made it a big story as well.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How Americans Interact with Government Online
27 Apr 10Fully 82% of internet users (61% of all Americans) looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website in the past year. Most government website visitors were happy with their experience, accomplishing everything or much of what they wanted to do.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Health Care Still Top Story, But Many Track Volcano
Awareness of Tea Party Movement Increasing
22 Apr 10Awareness of the Tea Party movement is increasing, but when asked to give a one-word impression of the group, a plurality of responses are negative.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Diversity Online
22 Apr 10While social media is often consumed by a single topic, the blogosphere has been split by three stories: Iceland's volcano, a Polish plane crash and Obama's press coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Teens, Cell Phones and Texting
Text Messaging Becomes Centerpiece Communication
20 Apr 10Fully 72% of all teens -- or 88% of teen cell phone users -- send text messages, up from 51% of in 2006. Among all teens, text messaging has now overtaken every other common form of interaction with their friends.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Explosive Coverage: Volcano, Nukes and Tea
20 Apr 10Mixed news on the state of the economy made it the No. 1 story, but a volcanic eruption, nuclear weapons and Tea Party protests rounded out the media agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Hiding in Plain Sight: Kennedy to Brown
Press Coverage of the 2010 Massachusetts Senate Special Election
20 Apr 10A new media analysis finds that after months of little interest, polling, not reporting, was the focus of intense press coverage in the race to succeed Sen. Kennedy.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor
The People and Their Government
18 Apr 10By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Game Changer
15 Apr 10Bloggers uniformly condemned erroneous reports that Mattel was changing the rules of Scrabble as a signal of the dumbing-down of our culture. Outrage also ran high over Virginia Gov. McDonnell's Confederate History Month proclamation.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Tea Party Consensus
15 Apr 10Despite calls for a boycott by some conservative leaders, a new poll finds that nearly all Tea Party supporters say they have or will return their Census forms.
Social & Demographic Trends

The Tea Party's Effect on the Midterms?
15 Apr 10If you are a Republican, what's not to like about the Tea Party movement? From this vantage point, a number of risks seem possible, if not probable.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Prisoner Dilemma: An Update
15 Apr 10Maryland has become the first state in the nation to make plans to count prisoners at their last known home addresses, not their prison addresses, for purposes of redrawing federal, state and local legislative districts.
Social & Demographic Trends

Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa
15 Apr 10In little more than a century, the religious landscape of sub-Saharan Africa has changed dramatically. In 1900, traditional African religions dominated. Since then, the numbers of both Muslims and Christians have risen into the hundreds of millions. A new survey explores how sub-Saharan Africans themselves view the role of religion in their lives and societies.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Public Tracking Health Care, Deadly Mine Accident
Many Say Press Is Too Tough on Tiger
14 Apr 10Americans 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.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Mine Disaster Dominates Discussion
13 Apr 10The accident and the ultimately unsuccessful search for survivors that followed drew attention across media platforms.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Nuclear Reaction
12 Apr 10In the U.S. and around the globe, the spread of nuclear weapons is seen as a major threat, but not overwhelmingly so. Those concerned, however, look to the U.S. for leadership.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Tomorrow's News
12 Apr 10Most media executives do not see a bright future for journalism. Still, newspaper leaders are more optimistic than their partners in broadcast. Finding revenue is a giant problem, but there is strong resistance to taking government or advocacy dollars.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Who and Where are the Non-Responders?
9 Apr 10A new analysis of 2010 Census participation rates so far has found wide variation from one city to the next in the degree to which racial and ethnicity predict response rates.
Social & Demographic Trends

Familiar Text: Health Care & Global Warming
8 Apr 10In a medium made up heavily of commentary and debate, some subjects refuse to go away.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Census in the News
8 Apr 10Stories about the 2010 Census account for a growing -- albeit small -- fraction of total U.S. news coverage.
Social & Demographic Trends and Project for Excellence in Journalism

Broad Criticism of Pope Benedict's Handling of Sex Abuse Scandal
Most Catholics Critical as Well
7 Apr 10Amid new revelations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI's job ratings for handling the scandal have plummeted.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Remains Focused on Health Care Reform
News on Jobs Still Seen as Mostly Bad
7 Apr 10Close to half the public (48%) followed news about the new health care law most closely last week, dwarfing the 8% following the other top policy story, the economy, that closely
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Hungary Dissatisfied with Democracy, but Not its Ideals
7 Apr 10Hungarians, who once pioneered the transition away from communism, are not turning their backs on democracy. Instead, they are frustrated by the fact that democracy has yet to fully flourish in their country.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Going Negative in November -- Can it Win for the GOP?
7 Apr 10In its Topic A feature for Sunday April 4, 2010, the Washington Post asked several experts -- among them the Pew Research Center's Director of Survey Research Scott Keeter -- whether the Republican Party would win in November with a negative strategy.
Pew Research Center

U.S. Birth Rate Decline Linked to Recession
6 Apr 10There is a strong association between the magnitude of fertility change in 2008 across states and key economic indicators including changes in per capita income, housing prices and share of the working-age population that is employed across states.
Social & Demographic Trends

Christian Legal Society v. Martinez: Can Government Funds be Denied to Religious Groups on Campus?
6 Apr 10Can a public institution refuse official recognition to a religiously-based organization that prevents those who do not share its religious and moral values from becoming voting members?
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Economy Tops Health Coverage
6 Apr 10For the first time in over a month, the U.S. health care system did not dominate news as coverage of the U.S. economy, fueled by an encouraging jobs report, topped the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Broad Public Support For Legalizing Medical Marijuana
Modest Rise in Percentage Favoring General Legalization
1 Apr 10Nearly three-quarters of Americans say they favor their state allowing the sale and use of marijuana for medical purposes. Support spans all major political and demographic groups. There is less support for general legalization, but the proportion supporting legalizing marijuana use has continued to rise over the past two decades.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Health Reform Overwhelms All Other Subjects Online
1 Apr 10After the vote, the discussion in social media began to focus on the tone of disagreements as much as it did on the reform itself.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Latinos and the 2010 Census: The Foreign Born Are More Positive
1 Apr 10Foreign-born Latinos are more likely to say the census is good for the Hispanic community and are more knowledgeable about the process than native-born Latinos. But large majorities of both groups plan to participate.
Pew Hispanic Center

It Passed. So What's in It?
31 Mar 10Democrats and the affluent are more confident they understand the impact of the new law. Most Americans are turning to the media for details.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Reform Dominates News, Again
31 Mar 10The passage and signing of health care reform legislation was the top story in each of the five sectors studied with the media focusing on the substance of the bill's provisions as well as the politics of its approval.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future
31 Mar 10Most technology experts and stakeholders say innovative forms of online cooperation could result in more efficient and responsive organizational structures for business, non-profits and government by the year 2020.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Transforming Journalism: The State of the News Media 2010
29 Mar 10Never before has so much information been available to so many people. But what role will media play in its dissemination? Can legacy media adapt so that legacy doesn't come to mean extinct? A panel of experts discuss PEJ's recently released "State of the News Media" report.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Ukraine Says 'No' to NATO
29 Mar 10Ukrainian President Yanukovych's move to ban Ukraine from joining NATO is not without a base of public support, a Pew Global Attitudes survey finds.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Live News Event
26 Mar 10Watch "Transforming Journalism: The State of the News Media 2010" live at 1p.m. on Monday, March 29. The event, which is presented by PEJ, George Washington University and the Newseum, features remarks from distinguished panelists and speakers including Jim Brady, Tina Brown, Tom Rosenstiel, Susan Page, Charles Sennott, Vivian Schiller and more.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Reform Rankles Blogosphere
25 Mar 10What characterized the debate online was the passion of the opponents, who frequently charged that the legislation subverted the public's will.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Religion in the News: 2009
25 Mar 10Pope Benedict XVI, 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 during the year
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and Project for Excellence in Journalism

Young People Make Up Large Proportion of Census Hold-Outs
24 Mar 10Younger Americans are found to be more likely to say they might not participate, even when analysis controls for other demographic characteristics.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Chronic Disease and the Internet
24 Mar 10Americans living with a chronic disease are significantly less likely than healthy adults to have internet access. The majority are online, however, and they are more likely to share what they know and to learn from their peers.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Public Critical of Media's Health Care Coverage
Democrats Increasingly Predicted Bill Would Pass
23 Mar 10On the day of the House vote, 62% said they thought the legislation would pass, up from just 43% last weekend. Many are critical of press handling of health care (details of the plan and the political debate).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Gun Control Splits America
23 Mar 10The public is divided over whether state and local governments should be able to pass laws banning the sale and possession of handguns as well as whether it is more important to protect gun owners' rights or control gun ownership.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Health Coverage: Politics Over Policy
Reform Effort Generates its Biggest Week of Coverage
23 Mar 10By a ratio of nearly three-to-one, stories involving the politics and strategy of the reform effort exceeded stories about what was actually in the bills.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Congress in a Wordle
Dysfunctional, Corrupt, Selfish....
22 Mar 10Dysfunctional. Corrupt. Selfish. It's not hard to guess what these words are describing. Examine a word cloud to see what the public thinks of Congress.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blog of Rights
18 Mar 10Bloggers focused on a subject near and dear to their hearts -- access to the internet.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Indonesia's Place Along the Spectrum of Global Religious Restriction
18 Mar 10Indonesia, where President Barack Obama will visit this month and where he spent part of his childhood, is among those countries of the globe where such restrictions and hostilities are highest.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Public's Economic Woes Persist
Health Care Reform -- Can't Live With It, or Without It
18 Mar 10Americans don't favor the current health care reform legislation, but most opponents prefer a new bill to no bill and more see their health care costs rising without reform than with it. Nearly everyone gives the national economy a negative rating; 70% of Americans say they have faced one or more job or financial-related problems in the past year
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Return of the Multi-Generational Family Household
18 Mar 10The multi-generational American family household is staging a comeback -- driven in part by the job losses and home foreclosures of recent years, but more so by demographic changes that have been gathering steam for decades. As of 2008, a record 49 million Americans, or 16.1% of the total U.S. population, lived in such a household, up from 28 million, or 12.l%, in 1980. Such households had been more common a century ago, but began to fall out of favor after World War II. Now they are coming back.
Social & Demographic Trends

Indonesia: The Obama Effect
17 Mar 10When President Barack Obama travels to Indonesia he will visit a country where his personal popularity has dramatically transformed America's image.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Legislative Lessons
Most Unaware of Votes Needed for Health Care Bill
17 Mar 10Most have heard something about partisan tactics on the bill, but only a third know how many votes health care reform will need in the next Senate vote.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Census: Growing Awareness, Most Ready For Forms
Age and Education, Not Partisanship, Factors in Participation
16 Mar 10Those with lower levels of income and education remain significantly less likely than others to say they will take part in the census. All partisans want to participate, but Democrats are more likely than independents or Republicans to say the census will benefit their community.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Census: College Students Count -- but Where?
16 Mar 10Should college students be counted in the 2010 Census at their parents' home or their school address? The Census Bureau has a cut-and-dried answer, but this question recurs each decade because census rules and people's preferences are not always in sync.
Social & Demographic Trends

Presidential Push Gets Press
Rep. Massa the No. 2 Newsmaker
16 Mar 10While Obama's advocacy for a vote kept health care the No. 1 story, Rep. Massa's unflattering publicity turned him into a top newsmaker.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

State of the News Media 2010
15 Mar 10 Inside news companies, the most immediate worry is how much lost revenue the industry will regain as the economy improves. But the future of news depends on longer-term concerns. What are the prospects for alternative journalism organizations that are forming around the country? Will traditional media adapt and innovate amid continuing pressures to thin their ranks?
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Gay Rights: An Audience Online
11 Mar 10While gay marriage accounted for less than 0.1% of the newshole in the mainstream press, it was the No.1 story in the blogosphere.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Post-Summit, More See Health Reform Passing
News About Job Situation Still Seen as Mostly Bad
10 Mar 10Belief that a bill will pass is on the rise, but still a minority opinion. Americans are still hearing mostly bad news about jobs.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Deficit Concerns Rise, But Solutions Are Elusive
GOP's Lead on Handling Deficit Mirrors '94
10 Mar 10While an increasing number of Americans cite addressing the government's red ink as a priority, there is not much support for spending cuts, regardless of party.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

It's All Politics
9 Mar 10The media's agenda (health care, Sen. Bunning, midterm elections and political scandals) was centered in the nation's capital.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Food Fight: Blogs Talk Hot Dogs
4 Mar 10A proposed warning about the potential health hazards of hot dogs triggered an impassioned backlash among bloggers.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Restoring America's Reputation in the World
4 Mar 10Pew Global Attitudes surveys chronicled the rise of anti-Americanism around the world for much of the past decade and its sharp recession in many countries following the election of President Barack Obama. However, this improving trend may be more fragile than it would be if it had been based on views of his specific policies.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Census History: Counting Hispanics
3 Mar 10Despite the long history of Hispanic residents in the United States, there was no systematic effort to count this group separately in the Census until the late 20th century. An analysis of changes in Census question wording over recent decades reveals the challenges in trying to count and describe this fast-growing population.
Social & Demographic Trends and Pew Hispanic Center

Public Focuses on Health Care and Olympics
Modest Rise in Expectation That Health Care Reform Will Pass
3 Mar 10Following the White House health care summit about a third of Americans think reform will pass this year, up from 27% before the meeting.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Summing Up the Summit
2 Mar 10The spectacle of a televised bipartisan meeting made health care the media's top story, especially on partisan talk shows.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Support for Alternative Energy and Offshore Drilling
2 Mar 10Americans strongly favor increased funding for research on wind, solar and hydrogen technology and more spending on mass transit, but majorities also support offshore drilling and nuclear power. Half have heard nothing at all about "cap and trade."
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The New News Landscape: Rise of the Internet
Understanding the Participatory News Consumer
1 Mar 10The overwhelming majority of Americans use multiple platforms to get news, and the internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a platform, ranking just behind TV. News is also becoming more of a shared experience. More than 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in emails.
Project for Excellence in Journalism and Pew Internet & American Life Project

"Climate-Gate" Re-Ignites the Blogosphere Debate
25 Feb 10Blogs once again fixated on one of its most popular topics, global warming, following a BBC interview with Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the so-called "Climate-gate" controversy.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Millennials, the Midterms and the Political Landscape Beyond
24 Feb 10At a conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010, Pew Research Center analysts and outside experts discussed research findings about the Millennial generation, the American teens and twenty-somethings now making the passage into adulthood. The last of three sessions addressed the question of whether Millennials, who rocked the vote in 2008, will show up at the polls this November and how they may shape the political landscape beyond?
Pew Research Center

Millennials, Media and Information
24 Feb 10At a conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010, Pew Research Center analysts and outside experts discussed research findings about the Millennial generation, the American teens and twenty-somethings now making the passage into adulthood. In this second of three sessions experts on media and technology examine how Millennials are seeking, sharing and creating information.
Pew Research Center

Portrait of the Millennials
24 Feb 10At a conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010, Pew Research Center analysts and outside experts discussed research findings about the Millennial generation, the American teens and twenty-somethings now making the passage into adulthood. This first of three sessions provided a broad overview of the Millennial generation, examining their demographics, values, attitudes and behaviors, and discussing the results of the new study.
Pew Research Center

Sports Centered
Winter Olympics Tops Public's News Interests
24 Feb 10The Winter Olympics proved to be the public's top story, while Americans' favorite water-cooler topic was Tiger Woods.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.
24 Feb 10A new national survey focuses on American teens and twenty-somethings who are making the passage into adulthood at the start of a new millennium. These young people have begun to forge their generational personality: confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.
Pew Research Center

Favorability Ratings of Labor Unions Fall Sharply
23 Feb 10Favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions' purpose and power. Currently, 41% say they have a favorable opinion of labor unions while about as many (42%) express an unfavorable opinion.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

In a Diverse Week, Stimulus Debate Drives the News
23 Feb 10Fueled by the one-year anniversary of the economic stimulus package, the U.S. economy led the news agenda last week, topping the Olympics, Afghanistan, Bayh, Stack and Woods.
Pew Research Center

Details About The Statistical Analysis Behind The Quiz
23 Feb 10
Pew Research Center

How We Created the Quiz -- and Computed Your Score
23 Feb 10The methodology behind the Pew Research Center's "How Millennial Are You?" Quiz.
Pew Research Center

Democrats' Gloom and Doom Is Premature
22 Feb 10While there is every reason to believe that the party is in trouble and will lose seats this year, there are no solid data that would justify a view shared by many here in Washington that the Democrats are destined to lose control of the House.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Does Google Make Us Stupid?
19 Feb 10Experts and stakeholders say the internet will enhance -- not degrade -- our intelligence. It will also change the functions of reading and writing and be built around still-unanticipated gadgetry and applications.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Bloggers to Content Providers: Keep It Free or We Will Flee
18 Feb 10Social media last week dove into the debate over free versus pay online content. Sparked by Warner Music's plan to favor Web sites that charge users, bloggers answered in force: We oppose it! Google Buzz also drew bad buzz.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Democrats' Edge Among Millennials Slips
A Pro-Government, Socially Liberal Generation
18 Feb 10The "Millennial Generation" of young voters played a big role in the resurgence of the Democratic Party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but their attachment to the Democratic Party weakened markedly over the course of 2009.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Haiti, Snowstorms, Economy Vie for Public's Attention
17 Feb 10Seven-in-ten say the media gave the right amount of coverage to the fierce winter snow storms that hit the East Coast and the South.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blizzard of Snow Coverage
17 Feb 10Debates over government efficiency and climate change joined more traditional coverage of local correspondents battling the elements.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Religion Among the Millennials
Less Religiously Active but Fairly Traditional in Other Ways
17 Feb 10By some key measures, such as affiliation with a particular faith or regular attendance at religious services, Americans ages 18 to 29 are considerably less religious than older Americans. But by other measures such as beliefs about life after death and the existence of heaven, hell and miracles they closely resemble their elders.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Bloggers Press Hot-Button Topics
Abortion and Gay Rights Talk Online
12 Feb 10The conversation online focused on Tim Tebow's anti-abortion commercial and gay rights -- with John McCain and the pope targeted for criticism.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Prisoner Dilemma
12 Feb 10Should the Census count inmates in the areas where they are incarcerated or try to link them to their hometowns?
Social & Demographic Trends

Midterm Election Challenges for Both Parties
Obama's Ratings Are Flat, Wall Street's Are Abysmal
12 Feb 10Opinions of the Republican Party have improved significantly but still far more people blame the GOP for the poor economy than blame the Democrats. Anti-incumbent sentiment runs high: three-in-ten don't want to see their current representative reelected. Financial institutions remain a major target of public anger.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Surplus of Deficit Coverage
11 Feb 10For the first time in nearly two months, coverage of the economy led the news agenda, driven by Obama's release of his $3.8 trillion budget.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Strong Public Interest in Haiti Aftermath
Press Gets Good Marks For Covering Toyota Troubles
11 Feb 10Controversial topics at home -- Toyota's recall, gays in the military, the Tea Party convention -- could not compete with devastation abroad for the public's attention.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Monkey Business Online
4 Feb 10Apple's new iPad and a film shot by chimpanzees beat out the president's speech in social media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Millennials' Lukewarm Support For Health Care Bills
Many Are Uninsured Yet Most Are Unengaged
4 Feb 10A third of Millennials lack health care insurance, and their support for health care reform exceeds that of older generations, but they have tuned out of the debate in Washington.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Mixed Views of Hamas and Hezbollah in Largely Muslim Nations
Little Enthusiasm for Many Muslim Leaders
4 Feb 10A survey of Muslims in eight countries and the Palestinian territories finds little enthusiasm for the extremist Islamic organizations, little support for Muslim political leaders and the widespread perception of a Sunni-Shia conflict. Most Muslims are also convinced there is a struggle between modernization and fundamentalists, and publics overwhelmingly support educating girls and boys equally.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Haiti Remains Public's Main Concern
3 Feb 10While the media focus shifted to Obama and his speech before Congress, public attention remained on Haiti.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults
3 Feb 10While the overall internet population expanded continuously over the past decade, Millennials continue to be the most likely age group to go online (93% now use the internet). However, their use of blogs, Twitter and social networking sites has changed in recent years.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

SOTU Puts Obama Center Stage
2 Feb 10The president was the predominant figure in more stories last week than at any time since his inauguration.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Inviting Centrists to the Tea Party
1 Feb 10The Tea Party movement may well attract more supporters as it becomes better known although divisions among Republicans and independents' wariness of political extremes may limit its growth.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Olympics Bridge Gender Divide In Sports Interest
1 Feb 10This month's Winter Olympics will be a rare sporting event in at least one respect: As many women as men say they are especially looking forward to the winter games.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Almost All Millennials Accept Interracial Dating and Marriage
1 Feb 10Compared with older groups, particularly Americans ages 50 or older, younger Americans are significantly more likely to be accepting of interracial marriage and are more likely to have friends of a different race.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Social & Demographic Trends

Twitter And YouTube Continue Focus On Haiti While Blogs Move On
28 Jan 10After playing a large role in promoting activism and fundraising in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, various components of the social media community moved in different directions last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Knowledge: Senate Legislative Process a Mystery to Many
Political News IQ Update
28 Jan 10In the latest Pew Research News IQ Quiz, Americans answered on average fewer than six out of 12 questions correctly. The public struggled with most of the political questions, and despite expressing strong interest in the health care debate, few know how many votes it takes to break a filibuster or how many GOP votes the bill got in the Senate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Conducting the 2010 Census
26 Jan 10Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census Robert Groves discusses the operational flow of the 2010 Census, design features intended to increase participation, the bureau's communications campaign, real-time monitoring/management, and evaluation of the quality of the census.
Social & Demographic Trends

It's All About Jobs, Except When It's Not
Unemployment and Presidential Approval Ratings 1981-2009
26 Jan 10A look at the connection between the rise and fall of joblessness and the political fortunes of past presidents in the modern era is instructive although the lessons to be drawn are far from crystal clear. Thus far, only Ronald Reagan’s ratings in his first term have borne as close a connection as have Obama’s to changes in the unemployment rate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Health Care Reform Now Seen on Life Support
Public Still Following Haiti News Closely
26 Jan 10The public’s take on the chances that health care legislation will be enacted this year shifted dramatically after Scott Brown’s Jan. 19 victory in Massachusetts. About two-thirds (67%) now say they do not think a health care reform bill will be passed into law this year.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Brief History of Religion and the U.S. Census
26 Jan 10Public debate over the propriety, merit and feasibility of the Census Bureau asking questions about religion has waxed and waned over many decades with religious groups, civil liberty groups, social scientists and the Census Bureau's own staff divided over the issue.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Cable Nets Split on Haiti and Politics
26 Jan 10CNN, which doesn't air ideologically oriented talk shows in prime time, broadcast almost three times as many stories originating from Haiti as did Fox News and MSNBC combined, both of which focused on the Massachusetts election.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Public's Political Agenda
25 Jan 10Strengthening the nation's economy and improving the job situation continue to top nation's priority list. However, shifts have occurred on the priority give to two issues: energy (down) and the budget deficit (up). Extremely large partisan gaps exist on the importance of health care and global warming.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Social Media Provide First-Hand Accounts, Direct Action on Haiti
21 Jan 10New media not only reported on Haiti, but were used as calls to action. According to CNN, the use of social media helped raise $8 million by the end of the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Michelle Obama's Strong Personal Image
Views of Recent First Ladies
21 Jan 10The first lady is more popular than either her husband or her two immediate predecessors.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Haiti Dominates Public's Consciousness
Nearly Half Have Donated or Plan to Give
20 Jan 10Not only is the public closely tracking news from Haiti, 18% report they or someone in their household made a donation to those affected by the earthquake -- many using the internet or other technology -- while another 30% say they plan to donate. The Obama administration gets high marks for its response to the disaster.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Most View Census Positively, But Some Have Doubts
Age, Education, Ethnic and Partisan Gaps
20 Jan 10Most Americans think the census is very important and say they will definitely participate, but there are partisan as well as racial and ethnic differences in opinions about the values of the census and in personal willingness to participate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Post-Communist Generation in the Former Eastern Bloc
20 Jan 10A Pew Global Attitudes survey finds that members of the post-communist generation, who are now between the ages of 18 and 39, offer much more positive evaluations of the political and economic changes their countries have undergone over the past two decades than do those who were adults when the Iron Curtain fell.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives
19 Jan 10A larger share of women today, compared with their 1970 counterparts, have more education and income than their spouses. As a result, in recent decades the economic gains associated with marriage have been greater for men than for women.
Social & Demographic Trends

Ukraine's National Election -- a Problem of Democracy?
Economy, Poor Leadership, Corruption Key
14 Jan 10On the eve of a national election, Ukrainians are not only disenchanted with their current leadership and economic situation; they are also the most dissatisfied among former Soviet Bloc nations with the transition to a democracy and free markets.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Blog Love, Not War
Social Media Talk Sex and Dating More Than Terrorism
14 Jan 10As the mainstream media were consumed with issues of terrorism, social media debated sex and dating.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama Image Unscathed By Terrorism Controversy
Few See Personal Upside to Health Care Reform
14 Jan 10The government's ratings for reducing the threat of terrorism have slipped, and Americans are increasingly more concerned with safety than civil liberties. Domestically, few see an upside to health care reform, and the national mood remains grim. Yet President Obama's political standing is little affected, and his personal image remains positive.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Despite Media Attention, Terrorism Does Not Top the Public's News Agenda
Health Care Still the No.1 Story
13 Jan 10Health care, winter weather and the economy were all just as big a story to Americans as the much-hyped terrorist attempt.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Widespread Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Italy
12 Jan 10Eight-in-ten Italians say they would like to to see tighter restrictions on immigration in a 2009 survey. Italians were also more likely than any other public included in a 47-nation survey conducted in 2007 to see immigration as a big problem.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

From Detroit to Yemen, Terror Tops the News
12 Jan 10More than eight years after 9/11, the ability of a terrorist attack -- even a failed one -- to transform and dominate the news landscape was evident last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects
A Year After Obama's Election
12 Jan 10Despite the bad economy, blacks' assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a new nationwide Pew Research Center survey on race.
Pew Research Center

How News Happens--Still
A Study of the News Ecosystem of Baltimore
11 Jan 10With questions about the future of journalism, a new study of the media in Baltimore, Md., examines who really reports the news that people get about their communities. Despite a rapidly expanding landscape, newspapers still drive stories.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Botched Terror Attack Big News on Blogs, Too
7 Jan 10In a rare occurrence, three central elements of today's news ecosystem -- mainstream media, blogs and Twitter -- agreed on the biggest story of the week, in this case, the failed Christmas Day terror attempt.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Did 'We' Want to Do It?
7 Jan 10With women about to become the majority of the U.S. workforce, how do most of today's Rosie the Riveters feel about being "put to more productive use?" In a word: ambivalent.
Pew Research Center

Millennials' Judgments About Recent Trends Not So Different
7 Jan 10Opinions of older adults tend to differ more from the other age groups than the views of those of the youngest generation when it comes to embracing technological advances and societal change. Two issues, the acceptance of homosexuality and tattoos, create especially large generational gaps.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Internet User Profiles Reloaded
Updated Demographics for Internet, Broadband and Wireless Users
5 Jan 10A new look at internet users finds 74% of Americans online, 60% using broadband at home and 55% surfing the Web wirelessly.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Terrorism Returns to the News
5 Jan 10The attempt to blow up NWA Flight 253 was the top story in newspapers, evolving from coverage of the attack to domestic politics and questions about Yemen.
Project for Excellence in Journalism