We recently included several winning Top Question Tuesday selections on an interactive poll. Stay tuned to this blog as we’ll be releasing the results over the next several weeks! And don’t forget to submit your own nominations for Top Question Tuesday using the box on the right of this blog.

One question, timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street earlier this year,  asked which muppet was the respondent’s favorite. Cookie Monster led the list with 16% naming him as their favorite, followed by 11% saying Elmo, 10% each saying Big Bird or Oscar, 9% saying Grover, 5% each saying the Count or Ernie, and 2% saying Bert. 7% of our sample said they were too unfamiliar with the show to choose, and another 7% said “another muppet” is their favorite.

With a few exceptions, most subgroup responses mirrored the overall demographics. Males were slightly more likely than average to prefer Cookie Monster (19% of males vs 16%  of the overall sample ), while females were slightly more likely than average to prefer Big Bird (14% of females vs 10% of the overall sample). Those 18-29 were more likely than average to select Grover (16% of youth vs 9% overall), while those over 65 were much more likely to answer “not sure” or that they were too unfamiliar with the show to choose.

If you watched Sesame Street as a child, or watch it now with your own children, do you have a favorite muppet? Did you pay attention to any of Sesame Street’s  40 year anniversary celebrations earlier this year? What do you think the future holds for television programming aimed at children?

Katy culture, lifestyles media, television, Top Question Tuesday

Welcome to this week’s edition of Top Question Tuesday. Last week’s winning question will ask people if they think Americans with unhealthy habits should pay higher healthcare premiums.  Once we have results from the question we’ll post them on our blog.

This week’s user-submitted survey questions are below. The questions are shortened to save space on our blog post, but these are the basic ideas. Take a look through and then vote for the question you’d most like to see on a Zogby Interactive survey. As a reminder, if you’d like to submit a question to be considered for a Top Question Tuesday Zogby survey, use the “Top Question Tuesday” box on the right of the page. And if you’d like to join Zogby’s interactive panel to answer questions similar to these, click here.

1. The PBS children’s television show Sesame Street recently celebrated 40 years of being on the air. Which of the following muppets is your favorite Sesame Street muppet, or are you unfamiliar with the show?
Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Oscar, Grover, Elmo, The Count, another muppet, or are you too unfamiliar with the show to choose.

2. Do you plan to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving?

3. How many working TVs are used in your household? None, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or more

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Leann Uncategorized health, shopping, television, Top Question Tuesday, work, zogby

I’m one of those mothers who’s not shy about breastfeeding in public – sushi restaurants, brewery tours, the New York State Fair — if my daughter’s hungry, it’s time to eat. Where ever we are. Sometimes I cover up, sometimes I don’t, but I always try to be as discreet as possible and no one has ever complained (as far as I know).

It seems I’m in good company, as most Americans aren’t bothered when they happen across a nursing mother. In response to a recent Top Question Tuesday question submitted by one of our readers, we asked how Americans feel about breastfeeding in public, and nearly 80% believe women should be allowed to breastfeed in public or private places they would otherwise be allowed to be. Overall, more than half (51%) believe a woman should have to cover up while nursing in public, but more than one in four (28%) are fine with public nursing without a cover. Younger Americans are particularly tolerant of nursing in public while uncovered – 50% of those age 18 to 24 feel this way, compared to just 11% of those 70 or older. This anything-goes attitude about breastfeeding is also more common among men (38%) than women (18%), which may or may not come as a surprise, depending on your perspective.

Some nursing mothers have caught some very public flak as of late for feeding their babies out in the open. One mother at an Indiana Olive Garden was asked to nurse her baby in the restaurant’s rest room after complaints were made to the manager. Another was told to cover up at a Chic-Fil-A in Orlando, prompting a group of nursing mothers to hold a “nurse-in” at the fast food restaurant. Facebook has a policy of removing some images that show women breastfeeding, which lead the formation of a group called “Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding Is Not Obscene!”

To the 16% of Americans who believe women should be allowed to nurse in public places, as long as that place is a restroom (given that I have found very few places that have specially designated nursing areas for privacy) – would YOU like to eat your food in a public restroom? I think not. Even before I became a mother, I would much rather be in the general proximity of a woman quietly nursing than listen to hungry baby shrieking to be fed. As for the 2% of Americans who believe women shouldn’t be allowed to nurse in public at all, I have a gentle suggestion. If you see a woman nursing her baby in a restaurant, perhaps you should keep your eyes on your own food, instead of what her baby’s eating.

I know many who refer to women who insist on nursing in public by such unflattering names like “breastfeeding Nazis”, but I often wonder if they pass equal judgment on the other cases of much more blatant breast exposure – like the scantily clad women on the covers of magazines by the grocery store checkout and in countless advertisements on billboards and television that leave nothing to the imagination.

By Stephanie DeVries, who works in Zogby’s Corporate Communications and Research department, and is a proud nursing mother who is ready to take part in a nurse- in at a moment’s notice, should one ever come to Utica.

Leann Uncategorized communication, television, Top Question Tuesday, work, zogby

If NBC network executives had the results from our December 2006 comedy poll commissioned by AOL, they may have thought twice about replacing Jay Leno with Conan O’Brien. The table below lists the findings for the question – which of the following late night/talk show hosts do you consider to be the most amusing?

Jay Leno 33%
David Letterman 20%
Jon Stewart 8%
Conan O’Brien 7%

With respect to Conan, he was considerably ahead of Letterman among First Globals™ (18-29 year olds), although still behind Jay Leno. However, among 30-49 year olds, Conan was behind Leno, Letterman, and Jon Stewart.

Nielsen ratings from June 10, 2009 showed Letterman’s viewership with a 3.4 metered-market household rating to NBC’s 2.9. “Late Show” was also up 13% from June 3rd and 17% from last June when Letterman was competing against Leno.

So, who do you prefer, Conan or Letterman? Do you like Jimmy Fallon as a replacement for Conan? Will you be watching Jay Leno’s new show?

ZogbyFeaturedContributor Uncategorized entertainment, first globals, television, war, work

We’re very excited to welcome Maya Dukmasova as a guest blogger this weekend. Maya is an intern with Zogby International and a junior at the University of Rochester, working on a dual B.A. in Philosophy and Religion. Originally from Saint Petersburg, Russia, she currently lives in Syracuse, NY and will be spending the coming semester studying philosophy in Paris, France. She also writes an intependent blog with interviews and impressions of ‘Life in a New Russia’ www.newspblife.com . Thanks Maya!

According to a May 29, 2009 Zogby Interactive Survey, things aren’t looking so grim for the newspaper business. The expansion of news aggregators and blogs on the Internet in recent years has accompanied a decline in readership of daily national and local papers. Our survey revealed that the trustworthiness of traditional national newspapers is now significantly lower than that of the Internet (15.8% to 37.2%, respectively). But, when we asked respondents where they get their news once they are online, the majority of them in every demographic category ranked national newspaper websites as “Very Important.”

When we asked which source they would choose if they had to get the news from just one place, the majority of respondents chose the Internet, with television coming in second (55.9% and 20.7%, respectively). Newspapers came in as the fist choice for just 10.2% of respondents.

The Internet came in first in the reliability category among the majority of our demographic categories. In most groups, newspapers and television came in second, except for Republicans and Conservatives who chose the radio as the second most reliable news source.

Respondents did not deem social networking websites or blogs as very important sources of news, but national newspaper websites came in as somewhat or very important news sources among all groups except for Republicans and Conservatives (42.6% and 41.9% of whom said these websites were not at all important, respectively), those over 65, Born Agains, and NASCAR fans.

So here the newspaper industry is faced with a paradox: Most find the Internet more trustworthy than printed newspapers yet see national newspapers’ websites as the most important sources for news. If the same articles by the same writers appear in both, how do we account for such paradoxical public opinion? Does the guise of the Internet inspire public confidence? If so, the nation’s major newspapers can look forward to long years of prosperity ahead, in a digital format of course.

Katy Uncategorized international, internet, religion, television, war, work, zogby

We’ve done a lot of polling recently on how people get their news and what sources they most trust. We wanted to find out more about why the Internet is in rapid ascendance, while newspapers are on the media endangered species list.
The results come from two Zogby Interactive surveys taken in the past month, one in conjunction with 463 Communications and the other a Zogby project. One question produced a particularly curious result.  We asked which of the four primary information sources was most reliable.

Go to John Zogby’s weekly column at Forbes.com  and read about why many people believe the Internet is the most reliable media source of information. Also, read more about our survey on the Internet and other media here.

Paul John Zogby, communication, internet, media communication, internet, John Zogby, media, television, zogby

Welcome to this week’s edition of Top Question Tuesday. Last week’s winning question asked about whether you believe your political ideology has become more liberal, has become more conservative, or has not changed over your lifetime. We’ll put this question on an upcoming interactive survey and blog about the results soon.

This week’s user-submitted survey questions are below. The questions are shortened to save space on our blog post, but these are the basic ideas. Take a look though and then vote for which question you’d most like to see on the next Zogby Interactive survey. As a reminder, if you’d like to submit a question to be considered for a Zogby survey, use the “contact us” box on the right of the page. And if you’d like to join Zogby’s interactive panel to answer questions similar to these, click here.

1. In general, which do you think is a better predictor of people’s ideology and voting habits: the ideology of their parents and immediate family,  or encounters with other people and ideas outside of their immediate family?

2. How concerned would you be if funding decreased for your local public library?

3.  Where do you get most of your information and news about national and government issues – print newspapers, online newspapers, television, radio, magazines, other internet news sites, blogs, or someplace else?

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Katy Uncategorized ideology, internet, media, television, Top Question Tuesday, zogby

“Throughout history, the development of new media technologies has always altered the way we think about threats to free speech” writes legal scholar and law professor Jeffrey Rosen in a recent article in the New York Times. The article, which discusses censorship of Google,  YouTube, and other sites in various countries, notes the contrast between  Google’s “long term commitment to free expression” and more timely concerns regarding profit and functionality in a wide variety of countries with a wide variety of censorship laws.  Many of the countries cited by Rosen have worked with Google to employ various measures of censorship that comply with that country’s laws; for example, the German version of Google does not list Holocaust denial sites that are listed on the American version of Google, while materials considered demeaning to founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk,  are not available to YouTube viewers in Turkey.

In a survey last summer, Zogby asked several questions about people’s views on Internet censorship. When asked whether the government should regulate the content of the Internet the same way the government regulates the content of television and radio, most people answered no. However, a generational divide regarding attitudes towards Internet censorship is apparent. Those over 65 are the most likely of any age group to agree that government should regulate content (32.5%), while those 18-29 the least likely of any age group to agree (14.7%), and other age groups fall somewhere in between.

This particular survey question asked about “the Internet” as a whole and found very little support for the type of censorship described in Rosen’s article. Might Americans be more likely to support government regulation of specific aspects or sites on the Internet? Or do you think Americans  are just inherently unlikely to support Internet censorship?

Katy censorship, politics censorship, history, internet, media, summer, television, war, work, zogby