Are You What You Watch?

The Lear Center's Media Impact Project polled some 3,000 Americans on their opinions about U.S. and world affairs as well as their favorite entertainment and news preferences.

Using a statistical clustering technique, respondents fell into three clusters: The Blues, who hold more liberal beliefs and enjoy a range of entertainment content; The Reds, who are more conservative in their beliefs and who watch very little TV entertainment, and a swing group, The Purples, who are not only the biggest fans of entertainment TV, but the most likely to take action based on the social issues they see depicted there.

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The Norman Lear Center's Media Impact Project researches how entertainment and news influence our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and actions. We work with researchers, the film and TV industry, nonprofits, and news organizations, and share our research with the public. We are part of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.