News Media Trends

With balloting little more than a month away, the 2010 congressional elections again topped the media agenda as a good chunk of that narrative focused on the power and potential of the tea party. And one factor that will clearly influence the outcome on election night, the state of the U.S. economy, was the No. 2 topic.

Technology topped the agenda on Twitter last week as the powerful tech troika of Twitter, Google and Facebook all generated attention. On blogs, the focus was divided between events relating to the Afghanistan war and the death of a veteran actor. And a YouTube-based host who creates his own brand of news was popular once again.

Summary of Findings About two-thirds of the public sees coverage of this year’s elections as focused primarily on strategy and conflict rather than candidate positions, while a comparable percentage says the 2010 congressional elections are more important than most. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) say news coverage of politics makes them angry. Still, few (36%) say election […]

In a year of attention-grabbing election surprises, nothing generated as much media interest as Delaware’s GOP Senate race last week. The troubled economy attracted significant coverage as well, but this time the focus was on tax cuts rather than employment figures. And education issues made a rare appearance on the list of PEJ’s top-five stories last week.

Anti-war and anti-Obama bloggers weighed in last week over the costs of the Iraq conflict and a quotation on a new rug in the Oval Office. On Twitter, the New York Times publisher's prediction about the future of print from drew attention. And a YouTube-based talk show proved very popular.

Summary of Findings As 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 – most notably plans by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran. Nearly two-in-ten (17%) say they followed the […]

A pastor’s plan to commemorate the Sept. 11 terror attacks by burning the Islamic holy book, and an imam’s desire to build a community center near the site of one of those attacks, generated significant media attention during a week of 9/11 remembrances.

Overview There are many more ways to get the news these days, and as a consequence Americans are spending more time with the news than over much of the past decade. Digital platforms are playing a larger role in news consumption, and they seem to be more than making up for modest declines in the […]

The latest biennial survey on news consumption from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reveals signs of a new era in the acquisition and consumption of news—and there is reason to expect the shift will accelerate. What is the nature of this new era, and why is it happening? A commentary on the findings by PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel.

Summary of Findings The public’s perceptions of economic news remain mixed, but continue to be much more negative than they were earlier this year. About half of the public (54%) says they are hearing a mix of good and bad news about the economy these days, while 41% say they are hearing mostly bad news. […]