Recent Publications

PewResearch.org features major reports, data-driven commentary and analysis, news stories, transcripts and presentations on trends in public opinion and related policy issues in the Pew Research Center's areas of special concentration: U.S. public opinion, global attitudes, the news media, the impact of the internet on American life, the role of religion in public life, the changing experiences of Hispanics in America and social and demographic trends.

When the material resides on project sites, summaries appear on the PewResearch.org site, with links to the full documents on the particular project web site. The archive of past reports and other features include material posted directly on pewresearch.org beginning in February 2006. Complete lists of all project reports and other features, including archives of material released prior to February 2006, can be found on the individual project websites.

Monkey Business Online
4 Feb 10Apple's new iPad and a film shot by chimpanzees beat out the president's speech in social media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Millennials' Lukewarm Support For Health Care Bills
Many Are Uninsured Yet Most Are Unengaged
4 Feb 10A third of Millennials lack health care insurance, and their support for health care reform exceeds that of older generations, but they have tuned out of the debate in Washington.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Mixed Views of Hamas and Hezbollah in Largely Muslim Nations
Little Enthusiasm for Many Muslim Leaders
4 Feb 10A survey of Muslims in eight countries and the Palestinian territories finds little enthusiasm for the extremist Islamic organizations, little support for Muslim political leaders and the widespread perception of a Sunni-Shia conflict. Most Muslims are also convinced there is a struggle between modernization and fundamentalists, and publics overwhelmingly support educating girls and boys equally.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Haiti Remains Public's Main Concern
3 Feb 10While the media focus shifted to Obama and his speech before Congress, public attention remained on Haiti.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults
3 Feb 10While the overall internet population expanded continuously over the past decade, Millennials continue to be the most likely age group to go online (93% now use the internet). However, their use of blogs, Twitter and social networking sites has changed in recent years.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

SOTU Puts Obama Center Stage
2 Feb 10The president was the predominant figure in more stories last week than at any time since his inauguration.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Inviting Centrists to the Tea Party
1 Feb 10The Tea Party movement may well attract more supporters as it becomes better known although divisions among Republicans and independents' wariness of political extremes may limit its growth.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Olympics Bridge Gender Divide In Sports Interest
1 Feb 10This month's Winter Olympics will be a rare sporting event in at least one respect: As many women as men say they are especially looking forward to the winter games.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Almost All Millennials Accept Interracial Dating and Marriage
1 Feb 10Compared with older groups, particularly Americans ages 50 or older, younger Americans are significantly more likely to be accepting of interracial marriage and are more likely to have friends of a different race.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Social & Demographic Trends

Twitter And YouTube Continue Focus On Haiti While Blogs Move On
28 Jan 10After playing a large role in promoting activism and fundraising in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, various components of the social media community moved in different directions last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Knowledge: Senate Legislative Process a Mystery to Many
Political News IQ Update
28 Jan 10In the latest Pew Research News IQ Quiz, Americans answered on average fewer than six out of 12 questions correctly. The public struggled with most of the political questions, and despite expressing strong interest in the health care debate, few know how many votes it takes to break a filibuster or how many GOP votes the bill got in the Senate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Conducting the 2010 Census
26 Jan 10Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census Robert Groves discusses the operational flow of the 2010 Census, design features intended to increase participation, the bureau's communications campaign, real-time monitoring/management, and evaluation of the quality of the census.
Social & Demographic Trends

It's All About Jobs, Except When It's Not
Unemployment and Presidential Approval Ratings 1981-2009
26 Jan 10A look at the connection between the rise and fall of joblessness and the political fortunes of past presidents in the modern era is instructive although the lessons to be drawn are far from crystal clear. Thus far, only Ronald Reagan’s ratings in his first term have borne as close a connection as have Obama’s to changes in the unemployment rate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Health Care Reform Now Seen on Life Support
Public Still Following Haiti News Closely
26 Jan 10The public’s take on the chances that health care legislation will be enacted this year shifted dramatically after Scott Brown’s Jan. 19 victory in Massachusetts. About two-thirds (67%) now say they do not think a health care reform bill will be passed into law this year.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Brief History of Religion and the U.S. Census
26 Jan 10Public debate over the propriety, merit and feasibility of the Census Bureau asking questions about religion has waxed and waned over many decades with religious groups, civil liberty groups, social scientists and the Census Bureau's own staff divided over the issue.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Cable Nets Split on Haiti and Politics
26 Jan 10CNN, which doesn't air ideologically oriented talk shows in prime time, broadcast almost three times as many stories originating from Haiti as did Fox News and MSNBC combined, both of which focused on the Massachusetts election.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Public's Political Agenda
25 Jan 10Strengthening the nation's economy and improving the job situation continue to top nation's priority list. However, shifts have occurred on the priority give to two issues: energy (down) and the budget deficit (up). Extremely large partisan gaps exist on the importance of health care and global warming.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Social Media Provide First-Hand Accounts, Direct Action on Haiti
21 Jan 10New media not only reported on Haiti, but were used as calls to action. According to CNN, the use of social media helped raise $8 million by the end of the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Michelle Obama's Strong Personal Image
Views of Recent First Ladies
21 Jan 10The first lady is more popular than either her husband or her two immediate predecessors.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Haiti Dominates Public's Consciousness
Nearly Half Have Donated or Plan to Give
20 Jan 10Not only is the public closely tracking news from Haiti, 18% report they or someone in their household made a donation to those affected by the earthquake -- many using the internet or other technology -- while another 30% say they plan to donate. The Obama administration gets high marks for its response to the disaster.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Most View Census Positively, But Some Have Doubts
Age, Education, Ethnic and Partisan Gaps
20 Jan 10Most Americans think the census is very important and say they will definitely participate, but there are partisan as well as racial and ethnic differences in opinions about the values of the census and in personal willingness to participate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Post-Communist Generation in the Former Eastern Bloc
20 Jan 10A Pew Global Attitudes survey finds that members of the post-communist generation, who are now between the ages of 18 and 39, offer much more positive evaluations of the political and economic changes their countries have undergone over the past two decades than do those who were adults when the Iron Curtain fell.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives
19 Jan 10A larger share of women today, compared with their 1970 counterparts, have more education and income than their spouses. As a result, in recent decades the economic gains associated with marriage have been greater for men than for women.
Social & Demographic Trends

Ukraine's National Election -- a Problem of Democracy?
Economy, Poor Leadership, Corruption Key
14 Jan 10On the eve of a national election, Ukrainians are not only disenchanted with their current leadership and economic situation; they are also the most dissatisfied among former Soviet Bloc nations with the transition to a democracy and free markets.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Blog Love, Not War
Social Media Talk Sex and Dating More Than Terrorism
14 Jan 10As the mainstream media were consumed with issues of terrorism, social media debated sex and dating.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama Image Unscathed By Terrorism Controversy
Few See Personal Upside to Health Care Reform
14 Jan 10The government's ratings for reducing the threat of terrorism have slipped, and Americans are increasingly more concerned with safety than civil liberties. Domestically, few see an upside to health care reform, and the national mood remains grim. Yet President Obama's political standing is little affected, and his personal image remains positive.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Despite Media Attention, Terrorism Does Not Top the Public's News Agenda
Health Care Still the No.1 Story
13 Jan 10Health care, winter weather and the economy were all just as big a story to Americans as the much-hyped terrorist attempt.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Widespread Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Italy
12 Jan 10Eight-in-ten Italians say they would like to to see tighter restrictions on immigration in a 2009 survey. Italians were also more likely than any other public included in a 47-nation survey conducted in 2007 to see immigration as a big problem.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

From Detroit to Yemen, Terror Tops the News
12 Jan 10More than eight years after 9/11, the ability of a terrorist attack -- even a failed one -- to transform and dominate the news landscape was evident last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects
A Year After Obama's Election
12 Jan 10Despite the bad economy, blacks' assessments about the state of black progress in America have improved more dramatically during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a new nationwide Pew Research Center survey on race.
Pew Research Center

How News Happens--Still
A Study of the News Ecosystem of Baltimore
11 Jan 10With questions about the future of journalism, a new study of the media in Baltimore, Md., examines who really reports the news that people get about their communities. Despite a rapidly expanding landscape, newspapers still drive stories.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Botched Terror Attack Big News on Blogs, Too
7 Jan 10In a rare occurrence, three central elements of today's news ecosystem -- mainstream media, blogs and Twitter -- agreed on the biggest story of the week, in this case, the failed Christmas Day terror attempt.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Did 'We' Want to Do It?
7 Jan 10With women about to become the majority of the U.S. workforce, how do most of today's Rosie the Riveters feel about being "put to more productive use?" In a word: ambivalent.
Pew Research Center

Millennials' Judgments About Recent Trends Not So Different
7 Jan 10Opinions of older adults tend to differ more from the other age groups than the views of those of the youngest generation when it comes to embracing technological advances and societal change. Two issues, the acceptance of homosexuality and tattoos, create especially large generational gaps.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Internet User Profiles Reloaded
Updated Demographics for Internet, Broadband and Wireless Users
5 Jan 10A new look at internet users finds 74% of Americans online, 60% using broadband at home and 55% surfing the Web wirelessly.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Terrorism Returns to the News
5 Jan 10The attempt to blow up NWA Flight 253 was the top story in newspapers, evolving from coverage of the attack to domestic politics and questions about Yemen.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Holiday Haranguings
31 Dec 09The continuing health care debate, and an insurgent campaign for the top of the British pop charts were at the center of social media commentary.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Stories of 2009: Public vs. Press
29 Dec 09The media's top stories generally reflected the public's top interests, but the press gave more coverage to politics (Kennedy's death, Palin's book, Specter's switch) than the public was willing to follow.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Project for Excellence in Journalism

More Now Think Health Care Reform Will Pass
22 Dec 09Americans continued to follow the health care debate more closely than any other news story last week, and the public gave the odds of a reform bill ultimately being passed the most positive assessment in two months of tracking.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How Religious is Your State?
22 Dec 09An interactive graphic lets you check out how your state -- and all the other states -- rank on four measures of religiosity.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Latinos Online: Narrowing the Gap
22 Dec 09From 2006 to 2008, internet use among Latino adults rose by 10 percentage points, from 54% to 64%, compared with a 4-percentage-point rise among whites and a 2-percentage-point rise among blacks. The growth among Latinos was driven mainly by increased usage by the foreign born and those with lower incomes -- groups that have low rates of online activity.
Pew Hispanic Center and Pew Internet & American Life Project

Public Looks Back at Worst Decade in 50 Years
Internet, Cell Phones Are Changes for the Better
21 Dec 09As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. But major technological and communications advances are viewed in an overwhelmingly positive light.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

No Denying the Heat of Global Warming Debate in the Blogosphere
17 Dec 09Climate change received more attention online than any other subject in a given week this year. Much of the added fuel came from global warming believers who joined a debate that had been dominated by skeptics.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Little Support for Terrorism Among Muslim Americans
17 Dec 09The Pew Research Center's comprehensive portrait of the Muslim American population suggests that, despite recent events, America is less likely to be a fertile breeding ground for terrorism than are Muslim minority communities in other countries.
Pew Research Center

Obama's 2010 Challenge: Wake Up Liberals, Calm Down Independents
17 Dec 09His approval has slipped, but is not much different from where Reagan stood at this point in his term. But the public's conservative shift could be trouble for the president.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Global Restrictions on Religion
16 Dec 09Since some of the most restrictive countries are very populous, nearly 70% of the world's 6.8 billion people live in countries with severe restrictions on religion.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

At Year's End, Nation Remains Divided
Splits on Obama, Afghanistan and Health Care
16 Dec 09As has been the case since October, roughly half the country approves of President Obama's job. The nation is also divided on Afghanistan and health care. One rare point of agreement, though, is that the economy remains poor.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Health Reform Still Hard to Understand
16 Dec 09Despite being the public's top story, most Americans are still confused by the health care debate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Teens and Sexting
15 Dec 09Among cell-owning teenagers, 15% say they have received sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of someone they know via text messaging.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Media Debate Climate Change
15 Dec 09The press used "Climate-gate" and Copenhagen as sparks to question the science of global warming, giving the topic by far its most coverage since PEJ began tracking the news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism