The Pew Charitable Trusts has teamed up with some businesses and nonprofits to launch Opportunity Broadband, a digital equity initiative.

The goal is to make sure that the tens of billions of dollars in government broadband subsidies being handed out by the Biden administration -- the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the American Rescue Plan Act and the FCC's Universal Service Fund -- translates to affordable broadband and equal economic opportunities for all.

Opportunity Broadband is meant to help communities "prepare to leverage connectivity, skills, and devices to realize the long-promised outcomes of digital equity." The vast majority of the subsidies -- over $40 billion -- is going to states and localities for their own broadband build-out and uptake initiatives.

Also: Democrats Suggest Broadband Subsidies Be Used To Promote Net Neutrality

"Universally available and affordable broadband, access to devices, and digital literacy are the first—not the only—steps toward achieving that goal,” said Kathryn de Wit, who heads up Pew's broadband access initiative.

Founding members of the coalition are Heartland Forward, the James H. and Mary B. Quello Center at Michigan State University, the Small Business Majority, the XR Association and the National Birth Equity Collaborative. The Quello Center is named after former FCC Chairman James Quello and his wife, Mary.

Look for a community broadband action plan from the alliance in the next few months. ■

The average audiences for two key evening news time slots on the Big Four affiliated TV stations were up in 2020 over the year before, according to a new Pew analysis of various data released Tuesday (July 13).

Pew said that local TV news was on par or outpacing network and cable news.

Also Read: Local TV Connects Amid Crises

Pew, which issues an annual review of key audience and economic indicators from a variety of sectors and sources, pointed out that audiences for the 4-7 p.m. and 11 p.m.-2 a.m. time slots were each up an average 4% (Pew cited Comscore data).

Total revenue (according to MEDIA Pro Access/BIA) was $18.4 billion in 2020, an 8% increase over 2019, driven by election advertising.

Gray Television, Nexstar Media Group, Scripps, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tegna — the big publicly held broadcast groups (and thus with publicly reported numbers) — reported a total $2 billion in political ad revenue, up from $1.2 billion in the 2018 mid-term election year, but almost two and a half times the $843 million spent in 2016, the most recent prior presidential election year.

Also Read: Pew: Led By Fox, Big Cable News Nets Fare Well in 2020

While digital advertising remains a fraction — less than 10% — of total TV station ad revenue, the category was up 6% to about $1.4 billion.

For a summary of Pew's methodology for analyzing the various data sources, go here.

A new Pew Research study finds that people who get their political news from social media (16% of respondents) are less likely to get facts right and more likely to hear unproven claims, but the study found local TV viewers were the least knowledgeable. 

The study distinguishes social media news from a news Web site or app, which is where most U.S. adults (25%) said they are getting their news. Local TV and cable TV were tied for third most primary source at 16% apiece, followed by network news at 13%, radio at 8%, and print at 3%. 

Consumers of online news not from social media score the best in political knowledge, with 45% getting a "high" knowledge score based on an index of nine "knowledge questions"* and only 23% getting "low scores. Only 17% of those who rely on social media for their political news got a "high knowledge" score while 57% got "low." But those who said local TV was their primary source were at the bottom of the list with only 10% getting a "high knowledge" score and 69% getting low. 

Related: Pew Respondents Say Regulate Social Media

Of the 16% who get their info from social media (the majority tend to be under 30), the study found them to be less engaged with major news stories and less knowledgeable, though not less knowledgeable than those citing local TV as their primary source. For example, the study found that 8% of those who get "most of their political news from social media" say they follow 2020 election news “very closely,” compared to four times as many (37%) of those who said cable TV is their primary news source.  

The poll was based on data from five different surveys conducted from October 2019 to June 2020. The number of U.S. adults in each survey ranges between 8,914 and 12,043. 

* A "high" knowledge index score is for answering eight or all nine questions correctly; a "low" score is for those who answered five or fewer correctly. 

According to a new survey, young people are not overly impressed with media coverage of either the racial justice protests or the pandemic.

Less than half of the 18-29's surveyed for a new Pew Research Survey (43%) say the media have done very or even somewhat well at covering the protests over the death of George Floyd.

Related: Survey Says National Outlets Top Covid-19 News Sources

Those numbers go up for the 30-49 cohort, 56% of which said they have done very or somewhat well.

The media get higher marks for pandemic coverage. A solid majority of all respondents (71%) say journalists have done very or somewhat well covering COVID-19. The 18-29 demo gives them the lowest marks at 63%. That may be because 61% of those 18-29s also say that the media hardly ever or only sometimes get their facts right about the coronavirus.

Pew surveyed 9,654 U.S. adults June 4 to 10, 2020, all part of Pew's online American Trends Panel (ATP). Pew said the survey is weighted to accurately reflect gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and more.

Two thirds of respondents to a Pew Research Center survey said they expect that virus will impair their ability to vote in the presidential election. 

The survey was conducted April 7-12 among 4,917 U.S. adults participating in Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. 

The survey found that 67% of Americans--80% of Democrats, but only half of Republicans--said it was either somewhat or very likely that COVID-19 would significantly disrupt the ability to vote for President. 

Not surprisingly, the survey also found a majority would favor the option of voting by mail, though again the breakdown diverged markedly by party--87% of Democrats favor that option, but only 49% of Republicans. 

The margin of error for the study is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

How the public perceives media coverage of the pandemic and what they say about the virus depends on which news outlet they identify as their main source of news on COVID-19. 

That is according to the latest weekly edition of Pew Research Center's Election News Pathways Project. 

That is a follow-up to an earlier finding that there was a clear political divide over perceptions of coverage. 

In the latest survey (of 8,914 U.S. adults), 66% of those who cited MSNBC as their main source of COVID-19 news said that the virus had come about naturally versus 37% of those who identified Fox News as their go-to source. 

As to how long it would take to come up with a vaccine, 78% of MSNBC watchers said a year or more, while 51% of Fox News watchers said so.  

CNN fans fell between the two extremes. 

There is also a big divide among MSNBC and Fox News viewers over how well the media has covered the pandemic. 

Among MSNBC fans, 92% said that the media in general covered it somewhat or very well, versus 58% of Fox News fans who said that. More than three quarters of Fox News fans (79%) said the media exaggerated the risks posed by the pandemic (the survey was conducted March 10-16, before the explosion of cases in the U.S.), while only 35% of MSNBC fans said so. CNN fans were almost as sanguine about media coverage, with 82% saying it was somewhat or very well covered, though more than half (54%) said they thought the risk had been exaggerated. 

A quarter of Democrats (25%), and even more Republicans (41%) said they believe there were "major efforts to purposefully delay the results of the Iowa Democratic caucuses last month. 

That is according to the latest Pew News Pathway Survey, conducted Feb. 18-March 2. 

Related: Survey Finds Concern Over Election Impact of Made-Up News 

It took days to declare a winner, reportedly due to problems with the app for reporting the tallies, leading to frustrated news outlets vamping for hours, candidates losing potential momentum--like winner Pete Buttigieg--and to the resignation of the state party chair in charge. 

Following the fiasco some Sanders supporters complained that rival candidates were conspiring to to keep them from winning delegates, the Washington Examiner reported. 

In the lead-up to the candidate Joe Biden's Super Tuesday turn-around, he was considered the candidate with the worst news coverage (by 27% of the respondents), followed by Michael Bloomberg (20%), then Sanders (13%). On the other side of that commemorative coin, Sanders was thought to have had the best coverage at 39%, Bloomberg next at 24%, Buttigieg (13%), and Biden (8%). 

That is not a big surprise given that after Biden's poor showings early on, many were leaving his campaign for dead while crowning Sanders the presumptive nominee if he remained on the same trajectory, as appeared likely at the time.

The survey was of 10,300 U.S. adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. 

In January, Pew Research Center launched its Election News Pathways initiative, which will extend through the 2020 election and explore how American's news habits and attitudes affect their perception of the election.  

From retraining Colorado coal miners to lay fiber to making it possible for a software engineer to work remotely from his small Wisconsin town, states are finding ways to help close the rural broadband gap, with the help of stakeholders and creative policymakers. 

That is the takeaway from a new Pew Charitable Trusts survey, which includes that states are taking strong steps to close infrastructure and adoption gaps, calling them "crucial partners in broadband expansion." 

Pew says that while a lot of the focus has been on federal and local efforts, states are "stepping in" to help fill the broadband gap. 

The study surveyed broadband buildout and adoption efforts in all 50 states and drilled down on efforts in nine states, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Pew said it talked to more than 300 stakeholders, including representatives of state broadband programs, ISPs, local governments, and broadband coalitions. 

The study identifies various state approaches to extending broadband into underserved or unserved areas. 

"Communities without reliable high-speed internet service cite a growing gap between the resources and opportunities available to their residents and those in communities that have a robust network," the report says. "Recognizing the importance of broadband and responding to such frustrations, states are seeking to close this gap. Most have established programs to expand broadband to communities that lack it or are underserved." 

Among the the "promising practices" Pew says it identified: 

• "Stakeholder outreach and engagement. All states with broadband programs are working to engage stakeholders at both the state and local levels.  

• "Policy framework. Many states have created a policy framework for broadband deployment by setting well-defined goals and a clear policy direction in legislation and tasking agencies or setting up separate offices to lead statewide broadband programs.... And they are connecting broadband to other policy priorities, including economic development, transportation, health care, and agriculture, to build partnerships and leverage more funding for expansion efforts. 

• "Planning and capacity building. Half of states have plans that define goals and objectives that provide a baseline against which to measure progress. Some also support local and regional planning efforts that help educate community members and build the local capacity necessary for successful broadband infrastructure projects.  

• "Funding and operations. Some states are providing funding to support broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas through grant programs that fund a portion of the cost of deployment in these communities. They are also ensuring accountability by requiring that grantees demonstrate they are providing the service they were funded to deliver while also providing the state with the data needed to evaluate the program and progress toward defined goals. 

• "Program evaluation and evolution. States that are supporting planning efforts and funding infrastructure projects are evaluating the performance of these efforts and incorporating lessons learned..." 

The FCC is working on a national level to close that gap, including with a new infusion of $20 billion over 10 years for rural broadband it approved in January. But it has had ongoing issues with the accuracy of the data it uses to identify where broadband is and isn't. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has also made clear that the money won't go to areas in states that are already getting money through other subsidy programs,  like the USDA's Rural Utilities Service.  

President Trump's attacks on the media appear to have had an impact on his Republican supporters. That is according to a new Pew Research Center survey and analysis. 

"The link between the public’s approval of President Trump and views of the news media is clear in evaluations of journalists’ ethics," said Pew. 

Related: White House Spokesfolk Echo President Attacks on Press 

According to the study, almost a third of all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (31%) say that journalists have "very low" ethical standards. By comparison, only about 5% of Democrats/Democratic leaners say that.  

Among Republicans who strongly support Trump, 40% say journalists have low ethical standards, while only 17% of those Republicans who only approve "somewhat" of Trump say that.  

The study data was gleaned from 12,256 members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) who participated in at least one of seven surveys between February 2018 and July 2019.

Eight out of 10 people say that the potential benefit from widespread data collection by companies is not worth the risks. A smaller, but still two-thirds (66%), majority say the same about government data collection.  

Given that result, it is no surprise that almost as many 79% say they are concerned about the way their data is used after it is collected by companies, with 64% saying the same about the government.  

But in either case, a majority say there is nothing they can to do stop it. 

That is according to a new Pew Research Center survey on digital privacy. 

It found that 79% said they were not confident that companies will admit mistakes or take responsibility for misuse of personal data. 

"Eight-in-ten adults say they are at least a little concerned about how much personal information social media sites (85%), advertisers (84%), or companies they buy things from (80%) might know about them," the survey found.

Data security is also a big concern, with 70% saying their personal data is less secure than in the past, with only 6% saying they believe data is more secure now. 

The survey found that six of 10 U.S. adults say they do not think it is possible to through daily life without having data collected on them by both. 

There are some race-based differences in views of privacy. 

Blacks (60%) are much more likely than whites (43%) to say they think the government is tracking most or all of what they do on their computers, tablets and phones.  

The survey was conducted June 3-June 17, 2019, among a total of 4,272 U.S. adults. The margin of error was 1.9 percentage points. 

Social media sites under fire from Washington for targeted advertising data collection apparently need to do a better job or letting Web users know how important those ads are to the free Web content they have come to treat as something of a digital birthright. 

According to a new Pew Research survey, only 59% of respondents knew that advertising was the biggest source of revenue for most social media platforms, rather than, say, exclusive licensing deals. 

That was just one of the findings from a 10-question digital knowledge "quiz" Pew gave to 4,272 adults, which Pew was billing as showing "a majority of U.S. adults can answer fewer than half the questions correctly on a digital knowledge quiz, and many struggle with key cybersecurity and privacy questions." 

Clearly by Pew's measure they struggled.  

Some eight out of 10 respondents got only 60% or fewer of the questions right, a failing grade--or at least a D-minus-minus--in most schools. In fact, the 59% that did know ads fueled web content was among the top percentage-getters, with only three questions answered correctly by even half the respondents (63% knew that cookies are text files that allow web sites to track user's visits and a whopping 67% knew that phishing scams can happen across multiple platforms.  

Among the other takeaways: Only about half (48%) "correctly answered that a privacy policy is a contract between websites and users regarding how their data will be used" and only 30% knew that an https://url means it is encrypted.  

The "struggle" might not be all about lack of knowledge, however. Theoretically someone might think a privacy policy is a notification of terms of service and not know necessarily a binding "contract." For example, this Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal holds that "website privacy policies...are generally not considered to be legally binding agreements."   

And at least one of the questions might have appeared to need more nuanced, "explain your answer" answers than "yes" or "no."  

"Net Neutrality describes principle that internet service providers should treat all traffic on their networks equally," was the question, with 45% saying that was correct. Some would, and have, argued that net neutrality means not discriminating against content for anti-competitive or political reasons and does not mean, say, treating cat videos the same as 911 calls.  

So, it might not be a case of knowing or not knowing, but interpreting the question differently, with even the politics of the respondent coming into play. 

There was also a question asking respondents to identify a picture of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, which is arguably more about cultural literacy poor news consumption than digital knowledge per se. 

The quiz/survey was conducted conducted June 3-17, 2019. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.9 percentage points. 

Men dominate images accompanying stories posted on Facebook by major news outlets, with those images being all that most users will be basing their impression of the story on. 

That is according to a new Pew Research Center study of posts by 17 national news outlets from April 1 to June 30.

That analysis, using machine vision (algorithms that identify objects) to look at "large quantities of images,"* showed that men appeared twice as often as women (53%), with a majority of pictures showing only men and less than a quarter (22%) showing only women.

Men's faces also tended to be more prominent than women's, taking an average 10% more space than men's.

Women tended to appear more often in stories about TV, music or movies, but even in those they were not shown more often than men. 

Pew said the machine vision model it used was tested at 95% accuracy for a subset of the data it was "trained" to analyze, and 87% on a random sample of Facebook news images.

Pew called the findings "striking," but said there was no benchmark for what such a ratio should be, and said the analysis did not address whether the actual stories that went along with the pictures were similarly more focused on men than women, but also pointed out that research has found that users only clicked on about 7% of the links to the longer stories--so that photographic first impression is all that most of them see. 

Pew said it chose to study Facebook news photos because the "standardizes the presentation of news images and text across outlets," because the news story posts feature large photos with only a little text and links to the longer article, so that the photo is the main thing users see when they are looking at the news feed. 

"The study results most likely reflect the gender gap in business, politics, sports and other areas that the media covers," said Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne. "Ultimately, news editors choose which images to include and which stories they post to Facebook.” 

* 22,342 Facebook posts with photos showing identifiable human faces.

Turns out the 18-49 demo is better at distinguishing between fact and opinions in the news, an important skill as the two are more increasingly combined, driven in part by attacks on the press by President Trump that have news outlets fighting back.

That is according to a new analysis of a Pew Survey Center study conducted Feb. 22-March 4, 2018, the results of which have just been published. Pew read respondents a series of statements and they had to place them in either the fact or opinion category.

The poll found that about a third (32%) of 18-49-year-olds correctly identified all five factual statements, while only 20% of those 50-plus could do the same.

When respondents incorrectly classified a factual statement as an opinion, said Pew, "they most often disagreed with the statement."

Almost half of the 18-49-year-olds (44%) identified all five of the opinion statements, while only a quarter (26%) of 50-plus did so.

Not only were the younger respondents better able to distinguish facts from opinion, they did so "regardless of the ideological appeal of the statements [see graphic]." Pew said the statements were meant to appeal to one side of the political spectrum or the other.

For example, "government is almost always wasteful and inefficient" for Republicans and "abortion should be legal in most cases" for the Dems.

Pew said that the younger demos' edge may be attributable to the fact that younger adults are less likely to identify strongly with a political party, or are more digitally savvy, which Pew says is tied to better classifying news statements.

But even accounting for that, says Pew, "[y]ounger adults are still better than their elders at deciphering factual from opinion news statements."

Pew polled 5,035 U.S. adults for the survey.

About half of Americans polled (49%) said they felt their personal information was less secure than it was five years ago, and a majority (64%) say they have have been exposed to some kind of data breach.

That is according to a new Pew Research Center cybersecurity survey.

The respondents did not have high expectations that the situation would be changing anytime soon.

Only 21% said they have a high level of confidence that either the federal government or social media sites can protect their personal information.

That comes as the government--White House, FCC, FTC--are trying to figure out how best to protect personal information and critical infrastructure in an Internet of Things world.

The respondents were about evenly split on the issue of encryption and whether the government should be able to get around it for law enforcement purposes.

According to the survey, 46% believe the government should be able to access encrypted data when pursuing criminals, while 44% said encryption should be unbreakable, even to law enforcement. Democrats and younger people skewed toward strong encryption while Republicans tend to favor law enforcement access.

One reason respondents may not have confidence in the security of their data is they neglect to follow cybersecurity best practices.

The digital divide between Latinos and whites is shrinking, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Since 2009, according to Pew, Latinos who say they use the Internet has grown by 20 percentage points, from 64% to 84%, while for whites the increase was from 80% to 89%, or fewer than 10 percentage points.

The biggest increase has come from Spanish-dominant Hispanics--almost doubled from 36% to 74%--and Hispanic immigrants, whose use has jumped from 51% to 78% since 2009.

There is no divide over what is the dominant Internet access tool: a mobile device.

The survey found that 80% of Latino adults access the 'net from a mobile device. That figure is 77% for blacks and 76% for whites.

The study was based on phone interviews with a representative sample of 1,500 Latino respondents 18-plus Oct. 21 - Nov. 30, 2015. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 points.

More than half of Americans (57%) oppose government monitoring of their phone and computer communications, but 60% say they are OK with government monitoring of American "leaders."

That is according to the second in a series of studies looking at privacy in the wake of the revelations about government surveillance leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden (the first is reported here). The new study was presented Monday (March 16) at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas. The survey was conducted Nov. 26, 2014-Jan. 3 among 475 adults 18-plus. The sampling error rate is plus or minus 5.6 percentage points.

Only 13% of the respondents had not heard about the Snowden revelations. Of the 87% who had, 61% said they had made them less confident that such surveillance was in the public interest, while 37% said they had made them more confident about that. The "losing confidence" measure was divided along political lines, with 70% of Democrats saying they were less confident, though a majority of Republicans agreed (55%).

While 60% said it was OK to track the communications of American "leaders" (the survey did not specify what type of leader in the question), close to half -- 49% -- said they thought it was OK to monitor the communications of people who "had friends and followers on social media who used hateful language about American leaders."

A vast majority (82%) of respondents said it is acceptable to monitor the communications of suspected terrorists.

Asked about concerns over monitoring of their own communications, the majority of respondents did not seem particularly worried. Only 39% described themselves as very concerned or somewhat concerned about government monitoring of their search engine activity; 38% about their e-mail messages, 37% about their cell phone calls, 31% about social media sites and only 29% about mobile apps.

The study comes as the House and Senate take up cybersecurity and data privacy bills, and the Obama Administration, which took steps to rein in bulk collection of data following the Snowden revelations, is seeking input on privacy regimes for drones, facial recognition apps, and other data collection and potentially sharing technologies.

It also comes just days after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) has granted the U.S. government authority to continue collecting bulk metadata from consumers' phone records for selective inspection by the NSA.