Research Findings

“Most e-commerce sites today have privacy policies, but whether these policies provide privacy protection remains an open question.” That was the message delivered to the Federal Trade Commission in Washington Tuesday by Joseph Turow, director of the Information and Society Program at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). “Privacy,” like the term “free,” has lost

Abstinence-only sex education programs – a favorite of the Bush administration but criticized by many health experts – are not supported by a large majority of the American public, regardless of their political or religious ideologies, a new survey has found. Eighty percent of those surveyed favored a sex education curriculum that includes information about

Although most parents agree that their kids should watch less television, they also aren’t certain how to pull the plug, according to a new study by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, RTI International in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

More than $400 million was spent on issue advertising targeted primarily to members of Congress or other federal policy-makers during the 108th Congress, according to a new study published in the fall issue of The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics. “Legislative Issue Advertising in the 108th Congress: Pluralism or Peril?” analyzed the nearly 68,000 ads

Rates of Online Gambling Among Males 18-22 Doubled Last Year Two days after Congress cracked down on online gambling, new data released today show that more than one million young people currently are using Internet gambling sites on a monthly basis. Among males 18 to 22, Internet gambling doubled in the past year. The new

Many Americans Lack Basic Understanding of the Judiciary Americans consistently rank the Supreme Court as the most trusted branch of government and hold a similar level of trust in state courts. But many also believe that the nation’s courts favor the wealthy and politically connected, that judges are motivated by political and personal biases, and

About 40 percent of adolescents ages 14 to 22 who use social networking sites such as MySpace report that they had been contacted online by a stranger not known to them or their friends, according to a national survey released today. This rate is about twice as high (20 percent) as the reported contact among

Contrary to what they have been taught in civics books, over one-third of American adults thinks it is okay for the president to ignore a Supreme Court ruling if the president believes the ruling will prevent him from protecting the country against terrorist attacks, according to a recent APPC survey.

Annenberg Public Policy Center research on the smoking habits and risk perceptions of young people was cited in a federal court decision last week that concluded that cigarette makers had engaged in a half-century conspiracy to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking. That deception has resulted in “an immeasurable amount of human suffering,”

The Internet is the best information source for promoting political awareness and civic engagement among youths aged 14-22, according to findings reported in the June issue of Communication Research. Conversely, a heavy diet of television viewing lowered political awareness. Newspaper consumption among youths heightened political knowledge, but did little to motivate the readers to become