Internet Users Say More Science and Religion Please!

How do you use mobile media and the internet for news? And what would you like more of? Science and Religion Today writes:

Check out this snippet from a new report by researchers at the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, who surveyed people who use the Internet as a news source:

Asked what subjects they would like to receive more coverage, 44 percent said scientific news and discoveries, 41 percent said religion and spirituality, 39 percent said health and medicine, 39 percent said their state government, and 38 percent said their neighborhood or local community.

Some other great tidbits from the Pew study:

Americans send mixed messages in the survey about how they feel in a world where news is updated constantly and they can access news all the time. We asked respondents about how the volume of news might play into this: “Compared with five years ago, do you think it is easier or harder to keep up with news and information today?” Some 55% say it is easier, only 18% say it is harder. One quarter of adults (25%) say there is no difference between now and five years ago.

Yet even as they say it is easier to keep up with the news, Americans still feel overwhelmed. Fully 70% agreed with that statement: “The amount of news and information available from different sources today is overwhelming.” Some 25% “completely agreed” with that statement and 45% “mostly agreed.”

And this:

When it comes to the quality of coverage itself, respondents give correspondingly mixed signals. Just under two-thirds (63%) agree with statement that “major news organizations do a good job covering all of the important news stories and subjects that matter to me.” Yet 72% also back the idea that “most news sources today are biased in their coverage.” Some of the explanation for this dichotomy seems to be rooted in the views of partisans. Liberals and Democrats are more likely to say the big news organizations do a good job on subjects that matter to them, while conservatives and Republicans are the ones most likely to see coverage as biased.