Pew Research Center

As Election Day unfolds, here are five charts that highlight how politically polarized the nation has become — and how most Americans expect it to remain that way, regardless of who wins.

1. Even before the current campaign began, the American public had grown more ideologically polarized along partisan lines, as Pew Research Center documented in a major study.
2. Republicans and Democrats have grown increasingly negative in their evaluations of presidents representing the other party.
3. Demographic changes have reshaped both party coalitions over the past quarter century, pushing them further apart.
4. Supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump differ sharply in their views of life in the U.S. today compared with the past. In August, 81% of Trump supporters said life in America today is worse for people like them than it was 50 years ago, compared with just 11% who said it is better. Among Clinton supporters, about one-in-five (19%) said life is worse, compared with nearly six-in-ten (59%) who said it is better.
5. Voters are skeptical that either Clinton or Trump will repair the country’s political divisions.

Politics on social media – as in real life – isn’t always pretty. But despite the downsides, exposure to the range of new ideas and viewpoints that many social media users encounter can occasionally cause people to change their minds about political issues or candidates.

Overall, 20% of social media users say they’ve modified their stance on a social or political issue because of material they saw on social media, and 17% say social media has helped to change their views about a specific political candidate. Among social media users, Democrats – and liberal Democrats in particular – are a bit more likely than Republicans to say they have ever modified their views on a social or political issue, or on a particular political candidate, because of something they saw on social media. (Democrats and Republicans include independents and nonpartisans who “lean” toward these parties.) In addition to asking whether they had changed their minds in this way due to social media content, our survey also asked respondents to tell us – in their own words – about a recent time this happened to them. And when we coded their answers, we found a number of distinct themes that emerged in the issues that came to mind.

When asked whether one prefers to read, watch or listen to their news, younger adults are far more likely than older ones to opt for text, and most of that reading takes place on the web.

Overall, more Americans prefer to watch their news (46%) than to read it (35%) or listen to it (17%), a Pew Research Center survey found earlier in 2016. But that varies dramatically by age. Those ages 50 and older are far more likely to prefer watching news over any other method: About half (52%) of 50- to 64-year-olds and 58% of those 65 and older would rather watch the news, while roughly three-in-ten (29% and 27%, respectively) prefer to read it. Among those under 50, on the other hand, roughly equal portions – about four-in-ten of those ages 18-29 and ages 30-49 – opt to read their news as opt to watch it. Most of that reading among younger adults is through digital text rather than print. About eight-in-ten (81%) of 18- to 29-year-olds who prefer to read their news also prefer to get their news online; just 10% choose a print newspaper. The breakdown among 30- to 49-year-olds is similar. News readers who are ages 50-64, on the other hand, are more evenly split between a preference for the web (41%) and print paper (40%), while those 65 and older mostly still turn to the print paper (63%). There is also evidence that younger adults who prefer to watch their news are beginning to make the transition to doing so on a computer rather than a television. While 57% of 18- to 29-year-old news watchers prefer to get their news via TV, 37% cite the web as their platform of choice. That is far more than any other age group, including double the percentage of 30- to 49-year-old news watchers.

Americans are divided in what they consider the most positive and negative attribute of the news media, and much of that divide follows party lines: Conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats stand far apart in their views of what the media do best and worst.

Conservative Republicans, for example, are more likely to say that reporting biased news is the most negative thing the media do, while liberal Democrats single out poor choices in the news they cover or how they cover it. As far as the most positive thing the media do, Americans are mostly split between two traits. Three-in-ten describe the media’s most positive attribute as simply doing their job of reporting the news, whether in general or on a specific topic. (Weather and traffic tops the list of subject areas, named by 11% of U.S. adults.) Nearly as many say the news media provide a service to the public (25%), such as informing people or acting as a watchdog. The other most positive traits mentioned, though by no more than one-in-ten Americans, are the media’s reports on uplifting or positive stories (8%) and their practice of high journalistic standards (6%). Additionally, 8% say the news media do nothing positive.

More than 750 new low-power FM (LPFM) community radio stations have been licensed to join the FM airwaves since 2014, according to the Federal Communications Commission. This has nearly doubled the total number to more than 1,500 LPFM stations across the US and its territories.

This surge is in part the result of a new window for applications that the FCC opened from Oct 15 to Nov 14, 2013. Thousands of applications poured in during that period. The window follows the passage of new legislation signed in 2011 that opened up opportunities for LPFM stations to operate in larger markets and urban areas. (The initial FCC order restricted LPFM stations to smaller markets and less densely populated areas.)

As journalists and media practitioners gather for the annual Online News Association Conference, here are 10 key findings from recent Pew Research Center surveys and analyses that show how these rapid digital shifts are reshaping Americans’ news habits:

1) About four-in-ten Americans now often get news online.
2) Mobile is becoming a preferred device for digital news.
3) Long-form journalism has a place in today’s mobile-centric society.
4) More than half (55%) of US smartphone users get news alerts, but few get them frequently.
5) Social media, particularly Facebook, is now a common news source.
6) Overall, more digital news consumers get their news online in the process of doing other things online (55%) than specifically seek out the news (44%), though there are differences by social media platform.
7) Few Americans trust social media as a news source.
8) While many Americans get news from social media, few are heavily engaged with news.
9) In the digital news environment, the role of friends and family is prominent – and for some it’s an echo chamber.
10) Three-in-ten Americans turn to 2016 presidential candidates’ digital messages for news and information about the election – and the candidates’ social media posts outpace their websites and emails as sources of this news.

In an increasingly contentious presidential campaign, just a quarter of voters who support Donald Trump in the general election say they have a lot or some close friends who are supporters of Hillary Clinton. Even fewer Clinton backers (18%) say they have at least some friends who support Trump. Nearly half of Clinton supporters (47%), and 31% of Trump supporters, say they have no close friends who support the opposing candidate. More than four-in-ten Trump supporters (44%) say they have a lot of close friends who back Trump, while another 38% say they have some friends who support him. Similarly, most Clinton supporters say they have a lot (41%) or some close friends (40%) who also express support for Clinton.

Among the findings: Election discussions focus more on personalities than issues. About six-in-ten voters (59%) say the discussions about the election have mostly been about the candidates’ personalities and comments; fewer (32%) say they have focused on specific issues and policy positions. In this regard, voters are having conversations about the election that reflect what they say they are seeing from the campaign and news coverage of the election. In June, 65% of voters said the presidential campaign “is not focused on important policy debates,” and in a separate survey, 55% of adults said there was too little news coverage of the candidates’ stances on issues.

How do Americans view Hillary Clinton – a fixture in national politics for more than 25 years – as the race between her and Donald Trump for the White House begins in earnest? Here’s a roundup of key Pew Research Center findings on views of Hillary Clinton, her politics and the impact she would have on Washington.

1) More voters say they know a lot about where Clinton stands on important issues than say the same about Trump.
2) Few voters think gender will hurt Clinton this fall.
3) Supporters and opponents see Clinton’s political views differently.
4) Many voters – including many of her supporters – doubt Clinton will change Washington much. Overall, about half (53%) of voters in our June survey say Clinton won’t change the way things work in Washington much. Those who think she will change Washington are divided on whether it will be for the better (20%) or the worse (25%).
5) Democrats feel warmly toward Clinton, while Republican views of her are very cold.

The long-standing digital divide in Internet use between Latinos and whites is now at its narrowest point since 2009 as immigrant Latinos and Spanish-dominant Latinos make big strides in going online, according to newly released results from Pew Research Center’s 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Meanwhile, broadband use among Latinos is little changed since 2010.

The story of technological adoption among Latinos has long been a unique one. While Latinos have lagged other groups in accessing the Internet and having broadband at home, they have been among the most likely to own a smartphone, to live in a household without a landline phone where only a cellphone is available and to access the Internet from a mobile device. Since 2009, the share of Latino adults who report using the Internet increased 20 percentage points, up from 64% then to 84% in 2015. Over the same period, Internet use among whites grew too, though at a slower rate, moving from 80% to 89%. As a result, the gap in Internet use between Latinos and whites declined from 16 percentage points in 2009 to 5 percentage points in 2015.

At a time when the appropriateness of language has become a political issue, most Americans (59%) say “too many people are easily offended these days over the language that others use.” Fewer (39%) think “people need to be more careful about the language they use to avoid offending people with different backgrounds.”

A new national survey by Pew Research Center finds substantial partisan, racial and gender differences on this question. About eight-in-ten (78%) Republicans say too many people are easily offended, while just 21% say people should be more careful to avoid offending others. Among Democrats, 61% think people should be more careful not to offend others, compared with 37% who say people these days are too easily offended. The partisan gap is reflected in starkly divergent views among Trump and Clinton supporters. By a ratio of about five-to-one (83% to 16%), more Trump supporters say too many people are easily offended. Among Clinton supporters, 59% think people need to exercise caution in speaking to avoid offending others, while 39% think too many are easily offended.