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

By: E&P Staff 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 here.