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72% of Americans are unaware of the number of U.S. casualties in Iraq |
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Thursday, 13 March 2008 |
The Pew Research Center surveyed 1 003 adults between February 28 and March 2 to determine the degree to which Americans were generally aware of the political climate.
Researchers found that 72 percent of responds could not correctly identify the number of American casualties in Iraq, which represents a 24 percent increase from August 2007.
Scott Keeter, Pew Survey Research Director attributes the sharp decrease in awareness to the decrease in media coverage. From February 28 to March 2, one percent of news stories focused on the Iraq war while in August 2007 Iraq was the focus of 15 percent of news coverage.
Mr. Keeter is quoted in the Washington Post as saying
"We try not to make any causal statements about the relationship between the absence of news and what the public knows," Keeter said. "But there's certainly a correlation between the two. People are not seeing news about fatalities, and there isn't much in the news about the war, whether it be military action or even political discussion related to it."
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