Communication

The U.S. government's official web portal.

Concise profiles of the countries of the world, updated regularly. Great first stop for background, quick facts, and statistics.

"A nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions."

The Wisconsin Advertising Project ("WiscAds") is a research project that analyzes how political candidates, political parties, and special interest groups communicate with voters via advertising. Between 2000-2008, WiscAds grew from the 75 largest media markets (DMAs) to the entire country. Each ad comes with a variety of codes, including issues mentioned (e.g., economic and social policies), suggested actions for a voter to take, and who paid for the ad.

Media Cloud, an open source platform for studying media ecosystems, is a collaboration between the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Center for Civic Media at MIT. Users can access the text data in their archive of over 5 billion sentences and over 25,000 online media sources by using their analysis tools or API.

The FCC provides more than 40 databases for the public to search and retrieve records and reports regarding radio stations, television stations, antenna structure registration, consumer complaints, telecommunication companies, licensing and fillings, and more.