Michael Barthel

Older adults tend to account for large shares of both poll workers and voters in general elections in the United States.

Researchers are learning more about early political socialization. Emerging techniques to fight misinformation are seeing some success.

Newspaper circulation in the U.S. reached its lowest level since 1940, and the audience for local TV news has steadily declined.

Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.

On Twitter, suspected bots are far more active in sharing links to news sites focusing on nonpolitical content than to sites with a political focus.

The politically aware, digitally savvy and those more trusting of the news media fare better in differentiating factual statements from opinions.

An analysis of 9.7 million tweets reveals that news organizations played the largest role in which content was linked to in discussions about immigration compared with other information providers.

Some major newspapers reported a sharp jump in digital subscriptions, but the industry as a whole faced ongoing challenges in 2016.

Roughly nine-in-ten Democrats say news media criticism keeps leaders in line (sometimes called the news media’s “watchdog role”), while only about four-in-ten Republicans say the same.