Media & Technology Press Releases

Survey: Social Media Negatively Impacts Women More than Men, Americans Say in Survey

By Burt Glass

Social media impacts women more negatively than men, according to most Americans, but traditional media does a better job giving equal attention to issues that affect both.

The latest Media & Technology survey by Boston University’s College of Communication found that three times as many than not, for example, say social media content negatively impacts women more than men, in terms of body perception, lifestyle and self-esteem (52% agree vs. 17% disagree).

But when asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the idea that TV, magazines, radio and newspapers “give equal attention to issues that affect women and issues that affect men,” respondents were almost evenly split (32% agreed, 35% disagreed).

“The most surprising result was the proportion of people, an average of 35%, that have no clear position when it comes to having an opinion on how women’s issues are covered or portrayed in the media,” said Nivea Canalli Bona., a master lecturer at Boston University’s College of Communication. “This could be a sign of low media literacy, which shows that people are not critical of the role media plays in perpetuating stereotypes. It can further point to the need for more media literacy projects in the country – with the goal of fighting misinformation and disinformation – which should investigate the gender issue.”

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Survey: Social Media Should Include Warnings about Nicotine, Vaping — and Social Media Itself, say Large Majorities

By Burt Glass

Social media companies should include warning labels on posts promoting nicotine, vaping and tobacco, say large majorities of Americans in the latest Media & Technology survey from Boston University’s College of Communication.

“The Surgeon General’s call for warning labels on social media is straight from the tobacco playbook when the government required warning labels on tobacco products,” said Traci Hong, PhD., professor at Boston University College of Communication and author of the survey. “They work, but they are not widely used on social media where vaping is promoted.

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Survey: Democrats’ Convention Knocked Trump’s Image Among Independents, Survey Suggests

By Burt Glass

The Democratic National Convention weakened former President Donald Trump’s image – notably among political Independents — but did not appreciably boost that of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, according to new national surveys conducted before and after the convention by Boston University’s College of Communication.

“The changes we are seeing, pre- and post-DNC in how Independents perceive Donald Trump is quite staggering,” said Anne Danehy, a former pollster and associate professor of the practice teaching political campaigns at Boston University’s College of Communication. “The Democratic National Convention did a good job of cutting into Trump’s image, but those positive images were not transferred to Harris.”

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Survey: Moderators Should Point Out Factual Errors in Real Time on Eve of Presidential Debate, Americans say

By Burt Glass

On the eve of the first of two planned presidential debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, more than two out of three Americans say moderators should point out factual inaccuracies in candidates’ comments during the debate, according to a new Media & Technology Survey from Boston University’s College of Communication, out today.

Support for fact-checking in real time is stronger among Democrats (81% agree or strongly agree) than Republicans (67%), the survey finds.

“Support for moderators pointing out errors is bipartisan and relatively high across the board,” said Tammy Vigil, PhD., senior associate dean and associate professor, media science, at Boston University’s College of Communication. “Still, the results imply that Democrats either may value verifiable information more than the Republican counterparts, or that they think live fact checking would significantly benefit their candidate or harm the opposition.”

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Survey: Leery of Government Regulation, Americans Want Social Media to Police Misinformation

By Burt Glass

The U.S. government should not regulate social media platforms, but the platform owners should remove, hide or limit traffic to posts with unverified information, according to Americans responding to a new Media & Technology Survey from Boston University’s College of Communication, out today.

A strong plurality (46%) disagreed or strongly disagreed with the U.S. government regulating social media platforms, compared to only 28% who agreed or strongly agreed. Respondents expressed more agreement with the removal (63%) or minimizing (57%) of unverified information by the platforms themselves.

These results reflect both the public’s skepticism of governmental overreach and support for private solutions to countering misinformation, according to Chris Chao Su, an assistant professor of emerging media studies at Boston University’s College of Communication who designed the survey.

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Survey: Public’s Confidence in its Ability to Evaluate AI-Generated Text Cause for Concern

By Burt Glass

More Americans are adopting tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, but a new opinion survey suggests scoring in their own ability to evaluate the accuracy, reliability, completeness, and biases of the text generated by artificial intelligence is cause for concern.

According to Yi Grace Ji, assistant professor at Boston University’s College of Communication and the primary investigator of the survey, in partnership with Ipsos, said the average result – a mean score of 3.26 out of 5, with a 5 for individuals who strongly agree that they can perform a set of specified tasks in critically evaluating AI-generated responses – is worrisome, especially because respondents tend to overestimate their own abilities.

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Survey: Dating Apps Not Best to Find Your Soulmate, But Still Worth It.

By Burt Glass

Dating apps may not be the best way to find a soulmate – but why risk giving them up?

That’s how many Americans feel about dating apps on Valentine’s Day, according to a new Media and Technology survey from Boston University’s College of Communication and Ipsos.

Many more men (42%) and women (37%) either agreed or strongly agreed that “people can find their soulmates” on a dating app, than disagreed (men 16%, women 15%).

Read the full article here.