Press Releases

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,”

FactCheck.org, the nonpartisan website devoted to reducing the level of confusion and deception in U.S. politics, yesterday was named by Time.com as one of “25 Sites We Can’t Live Without.” FactCheck, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, joins web heavies such as Google, Amazon, Ebay, ESPN, Wikipedia and

Annenberg Public Policy Center conference explores new world of web links — brave and otherwise “Every day millions and millions of individuals around the globe click highlighted text and get transported to new domains. Links connect people, companies and ideas in ways that make time and distance irrelevant.” With those words, Joseph Turow opened a

More than 175 bloggers, web entrepreneurs, researchers, designers, marketers and scholars gathered Friday at the Annenberg School for Communication to explore “The Hyperlinked Society.” Panel and audience members discussed everything from mapping the web and its users to economics and global access.

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

News coverage of suicides by local television and newspapers is more likely to trigger suicide attempts in others than national news stories on the subject, according to a new study that tracked reporting and health statistics in six U.S. cities. The study, published in the current issue of the Journal of Communication, is the most

The Media and the Holiday Suicide Myth: Press Reporting of the Link Declines The percentage of stories debunking the holiday-suicide myth has more than doubled since 1999. Based on a review of over 300 stories published over a six-year period there has been a drop in the number of stories in which the holiday-suicide link

About 2.9 Million Young People Gamble on Cards in Average Week; Increased Use of Internet Gambling Sites Also Observed The results of the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s 2005 National Annenberg Risk Survey of Youth (NARSY) indicate that the likelihood that young men will gamble on card games continues to increase. Download the full news release

Eight out of ten Americans and 94 percent of lawyers feel that the process of confirming judges to the Supreme Court has become increasingly political, according to a national survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Nearly six in ten of Americans say that they are confident the President will make good choices in his nominations to replace Supreme Court justices, while six in ten lawyers do not have faith in Bush’s ability to choose the best candidate for lifetime appointment in the highest court.