Report downloaded by 50,000 Users; 120,000 Hits to Web Site
HARTFORD, Conn. – From New Zealand to Denmark, Tasmania to Spain, journalists, religious leaders, bloggers and scholars have digested and dissected the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) that was released Monday, March 9 by Trinity’s Program on Public Values.
News of the survey of 54,461 U.S. adults, which provided a detailed and in-depth portrait of religion in America, spread like wildfire across the globe. After 12 days of exposure, which was kicked off with a page 1 story in USA Today, 50,000 people had downloaded the report from the web site (www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org); 120,000 viewers had at least looked at the survey; and a Google search produced 275,000 mentions.
The results of ARIS 2008 were published in more than 500 newspapers in 40 countries, broadcast on scores of radio and television stations and posted on blogs too numerous to cite. Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts devoted a column to the survey and reporters, editorial writers, TV commentators and theologians all weighed in on the subject.
Barry Kosmin called the reception to the survey “amazing.” Ariela Keysar termed it “unbelievable.” And Mark Silk described it as “remarkable.” All three spent the better part of two weeks being interviewed and responding to phone calls and emails. Essentially, the report showed that almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first survey was conducted in 1990, and that major geographic shifts have occurred, particularly with regard to Catholics.
Kosmin and Keysar, the director and associate director, respectively, of Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, did the interviews between February and November of last year, employing the same methodology that they used in 1990 and 2001. Silk is director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life. Both groups comprise the Program on Public Values. ARIS 2008 was made possible by grants from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. and the Posen Foundation.
Perhaps the most startling result was that the percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which rose from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 14.2 percent in 2001, continued its upward trajectory – to 15 percent. In addition, northern New England has overtaken the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country, with Vermont leading the country with 34 percent of its adults claiming no religious affiliation.
Results such as those produced dozens of stories – focusing both on the national and state-by-state trends. For example, Kosmin was interviewed by journalists in Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Oregon and Tennessee, to give just a sampling. Silk’s quotes appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country and Keysar spoke with the BBC and radio and TV stations from Australia to Spain.
All three agreed that the coverage was both gratifying and overwhelmingly positive, an outcome that was due in large measure to their tried-and-true methodology, their outstanding academic reputations, their large sample size and the rock-solid data that backed up their conclusions.
“I can honestly say that the amount of criticism, outside of some blogs, has been very small,” said Kosmin. “Nobody has actually turned around and suggested that the study was flawed.”
Keysar echoed Kosmin’s sentiment, saying, “I honestly didn’t sense any negativity. Nobody said ‘we don’t believe you’.”
Silk attributed the explosiveness of the publicity to today’s media environment in which news travels almost instantaneously, as well as the paucity of other major stories breaking on the day that ARIS 2008 was issued.
“This points to the new media environment and the world that we’re living in, where an academic center at a small liberal arts college can do a report and within hours and days can achieve worldwide attention,” Silk said. “In the past that would have been inconceivable.”
By coincidence, the other major story that broke about the time of the release of ARIS 2008 was President Barack Obama’s announcement that he was retracting the federal government’s opposition to financing stem cell research, a story that dovetailed nicely with the religion in America study and refocused attention on the survey.
Nearly two weeks after the survey was released, calls were still filtering in and the three academics were still very much in demand.
Said Keysar: “Crazy as it sounds, I don’t think it’s over. We’re not finished analyzing the data. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
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