Scant Attention to War in Georgia CHINA OLYMPICS ATTRACT CONSIDERABLE PUBLIC ATTENTION.pdfVIP

NEWS Release . 1615 L Street, N.W., Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel (202) 419-4350 Fax (202) 419-4399 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Thursday, August 14, 2008 Andrew Kohut, Director Kim Parker, Senior Researcher Scant Attention to War in Georgia CHINA OLYMPICS ATTRACT CONSIDERABLE PUBLIC ATTENTION The China Olympics are catching on with the American public and attracting a sizeable news audience. A majority of Americans say they are watching at least some of the Olympic coverage. Public interest in the Beijing games is comparable to that of the 2000 summer Olympics in Sydney; yet substantially lower than when the games were held in Atlanta in 1996. Moreover, Americans’ early skepticism about whether it was a good idea to hold the games in China has waned. The number saying it was a “bad decision” to hold the Olympics in China has fallen to 31%, down from 43% in Pew’s Global Attitudes Survey conducted in April, which showed Americans to be among the most negative about the games taking place in Beijing among the 23 nations surveyed at that time. Meanwhile, the share saying it was a “good decision” has risen 11 points to a slim 52% majority. One-in-four Americans (24%) report following news about the Beijing games very closely, comparable to the 27% who very closely followed the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Predictably, public attention to these games is considerably less than the 45% of Americans who followed the 1996 Atlanta summer games very closely. (No comparable measure from 2004 is available.) Americans who are following the Olympics are particularly likely to that think the decision to have them in China was a good one. Fully 66% of Americans who are following Are Americans Catching Olympic Fever? How closely following April Aug [upcoming] Olympics* % % Very closely 5 24 Fairly closely 18 29 Not too closely 31 24 Not at all closely 45 23