Religion

The Constitution of the USA guarantees of separation of church and state, and freedom to choose religion. In practise, this was true for much of the population but not for Native Americans where legislation forbade their choice of religion and mandated Christianity.

The percentage of Americans going to Church (or temple or mosque) at least once a week is significantly higher than in almost all European countries, but figures vary greatly despite all surveys agreeing on this tendency.

As of the 2003 census estimate, the major religions in the United States were:

Protestant 54%

Roman Catholic 25%

“none” 10%

Eastern Orthodoxy 3%

Jewish 2.8%

Mormon 2%

Muslim 1.9%

Buddhist 0.5%

Hindu 0.5%

Unitarian Universalist 0.3%

Mass media

Television is still very much the dominant medium in the USA, with 99 percent of all American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one. Many programmes are broadcast nationally and received either by antenna or by cable. Despite the rise of internet and recorded media, TV is expected to reign supreme for for time. Until the 1950s, radio was the principal form of mass communication but TV very rapidly replaced radio in that decade. Many of the earliest TV programmes were modified versions of well-established radio shows; later, exploitation and understand­ing of the visual capabilities of TV changed the medium.

In the 1980s, the capabilities of satellite added a "global" dimension to programmes that is predominantly used for news and 24-hour news channels. Sport in the USA rarely is international but is 'national' and so far less satellite coverage of international football and Formula 1, for example, is given.

Unlike all the other countries in this textbook, the United States has never had a government-run network or series of networks and is based upon on commercial giants such as ABC, CBS and NBC (often called the Big Three). These networks battle relentlessly to maintain their hold on the market and to come top of the ratings, especially at peak viewing times.

The U.S. is the biggest exporter of television content in the world. This content is driven by the need for viewing figures and a high position in the ratings. Consequently, in the U.S., television production is influenced by two major parties: advertisers, who hold a dominant position over the production of programmes, and cable systems operators, who mostly control the delivery of material over the pay cable networks. The owners of the production companies must attract advertising dollars, while the owners of pay cable networks such as HBO must only attract subscribers.

The major national broadcasts are in English, though many more urbanized areas of the country have some local broadcasts in languages other than English, such as Spanish, Chinese or Korean, and the two major Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision network are available in large parts of the country.

In the United States newspaper circulation has been declining for many years.

The largest national paper, USA Today, has a claimed daily circulation of ap­proximately 2 million, making it the most widely distributed general newspaper paper in the country. However, the validity of USA Today's circulation figures are disputed by some in the newspaper community. This is because of the paper's contracts with hotels as many of its papers are delivered to hotel guests who don't realize they are being charged for it.

Although 98 % of American cities have a single daily newspaper with declining readership, New York City boasts over forty daily newspapers in several different languages, including such national heavyweights as the Wall Street Journal (daily circulation of 2.1 million) and The New York Times (1.6 million), and America's oldest continuously-published newspaper, the New York Post, founded in 1801 by -Alexander Hamilton. Even the distantly third most popular New York Daily News 1786,000) has the seventh-largest circulation in the United States. There are seven daily newspapers published in Chinese and four in Spanish, in New York.

The major general newspaper outside New York is the Washington Post, the largest and oldest newspaper in DC. It gained worldwide fame in the early 1970s for its Watergate investigation by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein which played a major role in the downfall of the Nixon presidency. It is generally considered second only to The New York Times in stature among American daily newspapers. The Post has a reputation for being especially good at coverage of American national politics.