Post Due 10/26/10

Today I bring you a chart that describes American's beliefs about unregulated business. As one would expect, Democrats feel most strongly that businesses will harm society if they are not regulated by government. From the numbers, we can also see that Republicans feel more strongly about this topic. 75% of them disagree, compared to the 66% of Democrats that agree with the statement. We can also see that Americans, overall, are slightly more inclined to believe that businesses won't harm society if left unregulated by the government.

Post Due 10/19/10

Today I've got a chart from Gallup that shows American's opinions on openly gay Americans serving in the military in November 2004 and then again in May 2009. This is interesting because every single group of people has had in increase in overall support. One of the biggest surprises is that the group that had the largest change is the Conservatives (12% increase) and the people who attend church weekly (11% increase).

Post Due 10/12/10

This week, I bring you a table that shows which way registered independents are planning on voting in the 2010 elections. The voter turnout percentages are separated into two categories, "higher turnout" and "lower turnout". Which category a respondent falls under is determined by their answers to 7 questions, then they are put into either the "higher turnout" or the "lower turnout" categories. This data shows that the republicans have a strong lead among most independents. Republican leaning independents are more likely to be a "likely voter" than Democratic leaning independents.

Post Due 10/05/10

This week I bring something very interesting to the table. This is a line graph that shows how much confidence people have in the media. The first thing to look at here is the people's opinion of the media after September 11th, 2001. The gap widens a slight amount. Is this a coincidence? The gap might be too small to come to a conclusion. During the next period, 2004-2006, the lines make a dramatic cross. If I remember right, this is about  the time that US troops invaded Iraq. After that, the "% Not very much/None at all" line has been on the rise. Since mid-2007, people have been confused about what to believe. My belief is that people take their feelings of disapproval of governmental decisions and behavior out on the media because their delivering the bad news. I would be interested to see this graph with the four responses have their own trend line (Great deal, Fair amount, Not very much, None at all). This would show us the difference in people who have the extreme opinions.