Our research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed scholarly journals, including Journalism Practice, Journalism Studies, and Numeracy. Particular studies of interest include:
Better News About Math: A Research Agenda (2021)
This "call to arms" paper highlights the need for more research on the relationship between news and quantitative literacy. While our own research addresses some of the questions posed here, there's still plenty of exploration to be done. Read a summary, or get the whole paper.
Surveying the Landscape of Numbers in U.S. News (2022)
We analyzed 230 news stories sampled over the course of a week in early 2020, as COVID started to spread across the world. We look at the quantitative content in each story at both an overall and phrase-by-phrase level, and the demands placed on readers across four news topics (Health, Science, Politics, and Business). Read a summary, or get the whole paper.
Number Soup: Case Studies of Quantitatively Dense News (2022)
This paper closely examines the most quantification-heavy excerpts from a sample of 230 news stories. We discuss patterns observed across these "dense" excerpts, and the demands they place on readers. Perhaps most importantly, we offer implications and recommendations for journalists and news outlets. Read a summary, or get the whole paper.
Examining the Relationship between Quantitative Reasoning Skills and News Habits (2023)
This paper explores the relationship between people’s news behaviors and their quantitative reasoning abilities. Looking at these behaviors across a variety of outlets, we identify six distinct clusters of news use patterns, and discuss how these patterns—along with demographic and affective factors—relate to quantitative reasoning performance.Read a summary, or get the whole paper.
A Three-dimensional Model of News Recirculation: Towards a Unified Understanding of News Sharing (2022)
This paper outlines a general model for news sharing behaviors, both digital and analog, based on data collected over the course of our partnership with NewsHour. Read a summary, or get the whole paper.