Media & Society

The 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.

Conservative bloggers last week expressed outrage over a passage from Bob Woodward’s new book. Tweeters were galvanized by a security flaw on Twitter. And YouTube viewers were interested in some provocative statements a GOP Senate candidate made on television more than a decade ago. 

The fallout from the firing of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod and the one-year anniversary of the controversial arrest of African American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have put race back in the news. How much coverage do African Americans receive? What role did race play in coverage of the Obama Administration? A new study examining media coverage of African Americans in the first year of the Obama presidency offers answers.

Election-year politics and a noteworthy poll made up the hottest story in the blogosphere last week. Meanwhile on Twitter, a technology topic involving oft-scrutinized Apple topped the news agenda. And on YouTube, the most popular subject by far was Paul the octopus, the world-class World Cup handicapper.

The internet gives citizens new paths to government services and information.

A natural disaster, a tragic accident and complaints about Obama’s handling of the media shared attention in a very mixed news week that is somewhat atypical for the blogosphere. On Twitter, stories about Google led a week along with news that the Library of Congress is archiving Tweets.

The race for Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat began largely drama-free and little-covered and ended as the most surprising and intensely-covered political story in the country. Which candidate got the most favorable attention? How did coverage change over time? How did the local Boston papers differ in their reporting? A new study examines newspaper coverage of the race.

For the third straight week, the Obama Administration’s renewed efforts to pass a health care bill topped the news agenda while the U.S. economy followed in the No. 2 slot. Ex-Congressman Eric Massa’s weird cable TV tour also generated attention. And troubled Toyota found itself in the news again, albeit this time with somewhat more  sympathetic coverage.

Senior research staff answer 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.

The latest in a series of reports about the Millennial Generation, from Pew Social and Demo...