consuming the news
[Note the professed lack of interest in celebrity news. Either people
are lying, or the media market isn’t working very well.]
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/566/two-decades-of-american-news-preferences
Two Decades of American News Preferences
By Michael J. Robinson, special to the Pew Research Center August 15, 2007
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Summary
Although the size and scope of the American news media have changed
dramatically since the 1980s, audience news interests and preferences
have remained surprisingly static. Of the two major indices of
interest that are the focus of this report — overall level of
interest in news and preferences for various types of news — neither
has changed very much. This has been especially true for news
preferences; Americans continue to follow — or to ignore — the same
types of stories now as they did two decades ago. News “tastes,”
measured among 19 separate categories of news, have barely shifted at
all: Disaster News and Money News continue to be of greatest interest
to the U.S. public; Tabloid News and Foreign News remain the least
interesting.
Overall News Interest:
The overall level of “interest” in news has changed somewhat during
the last two decades, but that limited change has not indicated any
clear pattern of greater, or lesser, interest across 20-plus years.
The Pew News Interest Index (NII), which measures how closely news
audiences follow stories of all kinds, has shifted only modestly. The
index — based on the percentage of the American news audience who
say they are following a story “very closely” — ranges from 0%
percent through 100%. During the last 21 years (1986-2006), the
average percentage of adult Americans following all stories “very
closely” is 26%. While “very close” attention is a demanding
standard, this ratio of approximately one-in-four suggests that, at
least with respect to most day-to-day reporting, the American news
audience is only modestly interested.
The overall intensity of attention varies somewhat, decade by decade,
likely reflecting to some degree the intrinsic interest and
importance of events in the news. In the latter half of the 1980s, as
the Soviet Union crumbled, the news index averaged 30%. In relatively
halcyon 1990s, the average fell to 23%. In the first decade of this
century, with the country traumatized by terror attacks, a faltering
economy and engagement of U.S. troops abroad, the index rebounded but
only to its 1980s level of 30%.
While news interest does appear to shift as a consequence of real-
world circumstances, no such shift is observed as a consequence of
“news era” or changing technologies. Across three different “news
eras” — the “network news” era; the “cable-news” era, and the early
years of the “on-line news” era — overall interest in the news has
held reasonably steady.
Specific News Interests:
The index reveals that Disaster News — reports about catastrophes,
man-made or natural — garners the greatest interest. Money News –
stories about employment, inflation, and prices, especially gasoline
prices — ranks second overall. At the other end of the topic
spectrum, Foreign News — news from abroad unlinked to the U.S. –
engenders the least interest. Tabloid News — stories about
entertainers, celebrities and personalities — does almost as poorly.
Conflict` News — stories about war, terrorism, and social violence
– consistently elicits much more news attention than does Tabloid or
even Political News.
[…]