News Habits & Media

The aftermath of the devastating Japanese earthquake and tsunami, including fears about leaking radiation, commanded the attention of bloggers, Twitter users and YouTube viewers last week—eclipsing every other news event. And each of those platforms performed a different function.

Kristen will present the latest Pew Internet findings on participatory and mobile news consumption, and the level of public interest in religious and spiritual news and information.

Summary of Findings News about the aftermath of the deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan dominated the public’s news interest and media coverage last week. The crisis at Japan’s nuclear plants – far more than other aspects of the story – captured the most public interest. Fully 57% say they followed news about the aftermath […]

Local news is going mobile. Nearly half of all American adults (47%) report that they get at least some local news and information on their cellphone or tablet computer.

While print newspapers everywhere face difficult challenges in the future, newspapers in the United States today are suffering more acutely than those virtually anywhere else in the world. In sharp contrast with the U.S. situation, overall print newspaper circulation worldwide has dipped only slightly so far in 2010. Revenues are expected to rise, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

It is easy to oversimplify what is happening in online news. Breathless headlines — from the $315 million sale of The Huffington Post to AOL, Patch’s march to 1,000 plus local sites, to the early dismantling of TBD.com in Washington, D.C. – tend to obscure other important efforts, especially on the local front.

Seattle, perhaps more than any other American city, epitomizes the promise and challenges of American journalism at the local level.

Fire and fallout at a Japanese nuclear plant made the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake one of the biggest stories recorded by PEJ in the past four years. But by the end of the week, U.S. military action in Libya surpassed every other event, including Japan, in the news agenda.

As the New York Times begins charging for access to its website, the gap between the number of Americans who read newspaper online and in print continues to narrow.

For many people in Japan and around the world, Twitter was a vital communication tool in the hours following the devastating March 11 earthquake, the seventh most powerful in recorded history. And bloggers got an early jump on the presidential campaign.