Politics & Media

Senior Research Specialist Aaron Smith will discuss “Emerging Trends in E-Government” on a panel at the Digital Citizen Satisfaction Summit in Washington, DC.

The fighting in the Mideast, and especially Libya, topped the news last week, narrowly ahead of the U.S. economy. But perhaps the most interesting development was the emergence of the presidential campaign as a major story—thanks in large part to one controversial candidate-in-waiting.

For a second week in a row, the media focused on the economy and away from foreign affairs. Last week, driven by a Presidential speech, the government shutdown was replaced with a larger debate about national fiscal priorities. Lurking in the background was the 2012 presidential race, a story that gave tycoon and Obama birth certificate skeptic Donald Trump a platform of his own.

54% of adults used the internet for political purposes in the 2010 election cycle, far surpassing the 2006 midterm contest.

Republicans catch up to Democrats in social media use for politics as social media became a regular part of the political environment in the 2010 midyear elections

More than a quarter of American adults - 26% - used their cell phones to learn about or participate in the 2010 mid-term election campaign.

Senior Research Specialist Aaron Smith discussed the Pew Internet Project’s findings related to e-government at Digital Government Institute's annual conference.

Three stories topped the news last week—the economy, the aftermath of the 2010 midterms and the president’s trip to Asia—and all three involved narratives that were not positive for President Obama. The week’s other top stories included a cruise gone awry and a former president resurfacing on the media circuit to pitch his new book.

In 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.  How did the post election-day narrative differ from the front pages to the television studies and from bloggers to Twitterers?

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.