Research

In his first seven months as president, Donald Trump has generally drawn high job approval ratings among Republicans. But a new survey finds that nearly a third of Republicans say they agree with the president on only a few or no issues, while a majority expresses mixed or negative feelings about his conduct as president. A separate survey, conducted on Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel, finds stark divisions between those who approve and those who disapprove of Trump’s job performance in their impressions of the president.

Those who disapprove of Trump cite several concerns about him: 32% point to his personality, including his temperament; 25% mention his policies, particularly foreign policy and its impact on U.S. standing in the world; and 19% fault his intelligence or competence. Trump’s supporters raise different concerns: 17% of those who approve of his job performance cite his use of Twitter and other social media, while 16% say they are most concerned about obstruction from others, such as Congress and the news media. About one-in-ten of those who approve of Trump say their biggest concern is his personality (11%) and a similar share point to his policies (10%).

The most liberal and conservative members of the 115th Congress have attracted more Facebook followers than moderates, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. In both legislative chambers, members’ ideology is a strong predictor of the number of people who follow them on Facebook. The most liberal and most conservative House members had a median of 14,361 followers as of July 25, compared with 9,017 followers for those in the middle of the ideological spectrum. The median number of followers for the Senate’s most liberal and conservative lawmakers was 78,360, while moderates had 32,626.

The Public Lands Telecommunications Act (HR 2425) would make most fees collected by the federal government from firms with communications equipment on federal lands available to be spent, subject to appropriation, by federal land management agencies (Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Reclamation).

Those agencies could use those amounts to carry out certain administrative activities. Assuming appropriation of the amounts expected to be available under the bill, CBO estimates that implementing HR 2425 would cost $104 million over the 2018-2022 period. Enacting the bill would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. CBO estimates that enacting the bill would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028. HR 2425 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.

The present work proposes the use of social media as a tool for better understanding the relationship between a journalists’ social network and the content they produce. Specifically, we ask: what is the relationship between the ideological leaning of a journalist’s social network on Twitter and the news content he or she produces? Using a novel dataset linking over 500,000 news articles produced by 1,000 journalists at 25 different news outlets, we show a modest correlation between the ideologies of who a journalist follows on Twitter and the content he or she produces. This research can provide the basis for greater self-reflection among media members about how they source their stories and how their own practice may be colored by their online networks. For researchers, the findings furnish a novel and important step in better understanding the construction of media stories and the mechanics of how ideology can play a role in shaping public information.

With few alternatives, many households are choosing to simply cancel the services they need. A 2015 study found that 15% of American adults had abandoned their paid cable or satellite television service. Meanwhile, only 67% of adults had broadband service at home, down from 70% from just two years prior. This case study aims to examine a community absent from telecom companies’ field of view. The subject of this study is a working-class couple in their late 50s....Americans have been vocal about their opposition to increasing TV and internet prices, sometimes opting to cancel their services altogether. As service providers start to recognize the threat of losing customers, they must acknowledge the extent to which their practices have harmed elderly, immigrant, and working-class households in particular. Most importantly, policymakers must take advantage of the role they may play in advocating for these communities through promoting competition among telecom companies.

Many experts say lack of trust will not be a barrier to increased public reliance on the internet. Those who are hopeful that trust will grow expect technical and regulatory change will combat users’ concerns about security and privacy. Those who have doubts about progress say people are inured to risk, addicted to convenience and will not be offered alternatives to online interaction. Some expect the very nature of trust will change.

In the US, roughly nine-in-ten adults (93%) ever get news online (either via mobile or desktop), and the online space has become a host for the digital homes of both legacy news outlets and new, “born on the web” news outlets. Digital advertising revenue across all digital entities (beyond just news) continues to grow, with technology companies playing a large role in the flow of both news and revenue.

Digital-native news outlets are also adopting other outreach and engagement methods. Fully 97% of these outlets offer newsletters, and 92% have an official presence on Apple News. Three-quarters, meanwhile, release podcasts and 61% allow comments on their articles. These outlets are also highly likely to use social media as part of their outreach. Nearly all have official pages or accounts on Facebook (100%), Twitter (100%), YouTube (97%) and Instagram (92%). Far fewer (25%) have an official channel or account on Snapchat.

On the whole, the news offerings of US public broadcasters have been marked by relative financial stability and, in the past year, audience growth. The top 20 NPR-affiliated public radio stations (by listenership) had on average a total weekly listenership of about 10 million in 2016, up from about 9 million in 2015. (This includes listeners for NPR programming as well as original or other syndicated content aired on these stations.)

NPR’s digital platforms continue to be an important part of its reach. Both the NPR News app, which offers livestreams from individual stations and digital content, and the newer NPR One app, which offers a stream of individual shows and podcasts, have shown steady growth across devices in the average number of total completed sessions each month. The financial picture for news outlets in public broadcasting appears to be strong both locally and nationally, even showing some improvement year over year. At the national level, NPR increased its total operating revenue in 2016 to $213 million, up 9% from 2015 levels. PRI saw gains as well, rising 26% to about $22 million in total revenue for 2016. APM’s total revenue, on the other hand, went down 6% year over year, accounting for $126 million in 2016. At the local public radio level, an analysis of the public filings provided by the 125 largest news-oriented licensees (organizations that operate local public radio stations) shows overall steady revenue. Between 2014 and 2015 – the last year for which reliable data are available – total revenue for this group remained relatively flat at $807 million.

Many black-oriented newspapers – some more than a century old – have seen a slow decline in circulation in recent years, mirroring the overall decline in newspaper circulation. Both print and television Hispanic media, on the other hand, have enjoyed relative strength over the last decade, but that growth has now slowed. As the two largest Spanish-language television networks in the US, Univision and Telemundo are key providers of news for Spanish speakers. While viewership for some shows on these networks was roughly flat or even increased in 16, viewership for each network’s largest news program decreased at least slightly.

Black-oriented newspapers are a long-standing minority news sector in the US. The black press trade association (National Newspaper Publishers Association) currently lists around 150 members on its website, but few of these papers have regularly audited circulation figures, making it difficult to acquire audience figures for the sector as a whole. There are, however, some black-oriented newspapers – most of which are weekly or semiweekly – with recent circulation data available through the main audit bureaus that can serve as indicators. Among these, the data show that African American newspapers with a substantial amount of paid circulation either lost circulation or held steady from 2015 to 2016. For a number of mostly free-distribution newspapers, circulation results were more mixed.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) collects and maintains personal data on millions of individuals, including data related to security clearance investigations. In 2015, OPM reported significant breaches of personal information that affected 21.5 million individuals. The Senate report accompanying the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2016 included a provision for GAO to review information security at OPM. GAO evaluated OPM's (1) actions since the 2015 reported data breaches to prevent, mitigate, and respond to data breaches involving sensitive personnel records and information; (2) information security policies and practices for implementing selected government-wide initiatives and requirements; and (3) procedures for overseeing the security of OPM information maintained by contractors providing IT services. To do so, GAO examined policies, plans, and procedures and other documents; tested controls for selected systems; and interviewed officials. This is a public version of a sensitive report being issued concurrently. GAO omitted certain specific examples due to the sensitive nature of the information.

GAO is making five recommendations to improve OPM's security. OPM concurred with four of these and partially concurred with the one on validating its corrective actions. GAO continues to believe that implementation of this recommendation is warranted. In GAO's limited distribution report, GAO made nine additional recommendations.