Andrew Beaujon
June 17, 2013
12:05 am
Pew Research Center
About half the news coverage of the Supreme Court's deliberations on two same-sex marriage cases this spring focused on support for gay marriage, while only 9 percent focused on opposition. 44 percent of coverage was neutral. Those are among the findings of a new study by Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, out today.
The Supreme Court may rule on one or both of those cases Monday.
That trend continued across "nearly all media sectors studied," the report says. "All three of the major cable networks, for instance, had more stories with significantly more supportive statements than opposing, including Fox News."
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
June 13, 2013
11:34 am
Pew
39 percent of news nonprofits Pew surveyed "said they favor “some form of government subsidies” to help fund organizations like theirs," Jodi Enda writes. 30 percent opposed taking public money.
"In fact, the notion that the government would subsidize the news business is not new," Enda writes.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
June 10, 2013
11:57 am
Today Pew announced research showing that
one-third of American adults own tablets. And while tablets can be wonderful ways to experience newspapers' online offerings, publishers should not forget the far less sexy, and increasingly common, smartphone.
Last week Pew reported that more than half of Americans have smartphones, and
half of smartphone owners with household incomes over $150,000 have iPhones.
Android and iPhone owners are equally common within the cell owner population as a whole, although this ratio differs across various demographic groups. Cell phone owners from a wide range of educational and household income groupings have similar levels of Android adoption, but those from the upper end of the income and education spectrum are much more likely than those with lower income and educational levels to say they own an iPhone. (more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
May 1, 2013
3:29 pm
The Verge
Tech writer Paul Miller's dreams of an analogue existence during his year away from the Internet didn't come true: "
I just didn't really do much of that," he says about going to the library and using the post office.
He planned to leave reporting altogether, feeling like "there's always more and more news to cover," as he says in a video about his experiment. But instead of feeling free, he writes in an essay, he became something of a hermit: "Instead of taking boredom and lack of stimulation and turning them into learning and creativity, I turned toward passive consumption and social retreat."
A year in, I don't ride my bike so much. My frisbee gathers dust. Most weeks I don't go out with people even once. My favorite place is the couch. I prop my feet up on the coffee table, play a video game, and listen to an audiobook. I pick a mindless game, like Borderlands 2 or Skate 3, and absently thumb the sticks through the game-world while my mind rests on the audiobook, or maybe just on nothing.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
Mar. 18, 2013
12:02 am
Readers, viewers and listeners may not have followed the contraction of the news business closely, but they're beginning to notice the effects of five dismal years for many publishers. That's one of the key findings of
this year's State of the News Media report from Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism.
"Nearly a third of U.S. adults, 31%, have stopped turning to a news outlet because it no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting," the report says.
With reporting resources cut to the bone and fewer specialized beats, journalists’ level of expertise in any one area and the ability to go deep into a story are compromised. Indeed, when people who had heard something about the financial struggles were asked which effect they noticed more, stories that were less complete or fewer stories over all, 48% named less complete stories while 31% mostly noticed fewer stories. Overall, awareness of the industry’s financial struggles is limited. Only 39% have heard a lot or some. But those with greater awareness are also more likely to be the ones who have abandoned a news outlet.
The report is a rich document that requires a lot more attention than one blog post can give it. But here are some other takeaways of immediate interest.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
Mar. 13, 2013
1:32 pm
Pew
Publishers who hope to avoid what Tom Rosenstiel called "
digital hesitation 2.0" in a Poynter.org piece Wednesday might want to look at
some findings from Pew released the same day.
Pew found that 37 percent of teenagers have smart phones, compared to 23 percent in 2011. Half of those kids "use the Internet mostly via their cell phone." Teen girls, the report says, are significantly more likely than boys to say they access the Internet mostly using their cell phone."
The report also highlighted an important finding for news organizations that want to reach younger people who may not have access to computers:
In overall Internet use, youth ages 12-17 who are living in lower-income and lower-education households are still somewhat less likely to use the internet in any capacity — mobile or wired. However, those who fall into lower socioeconomic groups are just as likely and in some cases more likely than those living in higher income and more highly educated households to use their cell phone as a primary point of access.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
Mar. 5, 2013
8:14 am
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Andrew Beaujon
Feb. 14, 2013
3:29 pm
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Rick Edmonds
Feb. 11, 2013
5:54 am
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Jeff Sonderman
Dec. 12, 2012
10:34 am
In the past year, American cell phone owners became more likely to use the Internet on their phones (51 percent, up from 43 percent in 2011) and capture pictures or videos (67 percent, up from 57 percent).
That’s one insight … Read more
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
