[Infowarrior] - Pew Center Reflects on Two Decades of U.S. News Preferences

[Richard Forno]

Pew Center Reflects on Two Decades of U.S. News Preferences

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content
_id=1003631682&imw=Y

By E&P Staff

Published: August 27, 2007 3:40 PM ET

NEW YORK The Pew Research Center has released a new study that monitored
public interest in news from 1986 to 2006.

The results show that though American interest in news has shifted with the
times, the changes have been slight and not suggestive of any sort of
meaningful trend.

The study broke down the news into 19 categories:

-War/Terrorism (U.S.-Linked)
-Bad Weather
-Man-Made Disasters
-Natural Disaster
-Money
-Crime and Social Violence
-Health and Safety
-Domestic Policy
-Campaigns and Elections
-Washington Politics
-Political Scandals
-Other Politics
-Sports
-War/Terrorism (Non-U.S.)
-Science and Technology
-Foreign Policy (US)
-Other Nations
-Personalities and Entertainment
-Celebrity Scandals

Each category was then analyzed for three decades: 1986-1989, 1990-1999,
2000-2006.

Two categories of news --"Washington Politics" and "Money -- trended upward
during the period of study. From 1986-1989, "Washington Politics" was read
closely by 17% of the polled audience, while "Money" was read closely by 23%
of the audience. By the final period, 2000-2006, "Washington Politics" had
risen in interest up to 24%, while "Money" news was up to 40%.

In all, the only pattern to truly emerge among the 19 categories was what
researchers deemed a "U-shape": categories that started high, slipped in the
next decade, and then rose again in this decade.

Perhaps one of the greater surprises of the Pew study is that what the study
called "Tabloid News" (a combination of celebrity gossip, non-political
scandals, popular culture, and sports), did not climb steadily nor dominate
any of the other categories. In the 1980s, it had an index score of 21%. By
the end of the survey, it was at 18%.

As a breakdown per decade, the following were the top news subjects:

1986-1989: Natural Disaster (61% interest)
1990-1999: Bad Weather (40% interest)
2000-2006: War/Terrorism (U.S.-Linked) (43% interest)

The entire results of the study can be found at
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/574/two-decades-of-american-news-preferences