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"God Speaks:"
A Case Study of a Public Service Campaign
Karen M. Lancendorfer
Department of Advertising
Michigan State University
312 Communication Arts Building
East Lansing, MI 48824
(517) 355-8371
[log in to unmask]
Bonnie B. Reece
Department of Advertising
Michigan State University
309 Communication Arts Building
East Lansing, MI 48824
(517) 432-3586
[log in to unmask]
Paper submitted to the 2004 Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication Annual Convention, Special Topics Paper Competition of
the Advertising Division.
Karen M. Lancendorfer is a doctoral student in the Mass Media Ph.D. Program
at Michigan State University. Bonnie B. Reece is Professor and Chairperson
of the Department of Advertising, Michigan State University.
"God Speaks" 6
"God Speaks:"
A Case Study of a Public Service Campaign
ABSTRACT
Public service campaigns, spanning 60 years and thousands of mass media
advertisements, have asked Americans to 'Say No to Drugs' and 'Keep America
Beautiful', along with everything in between. Although these campaigns are
often considered important tools in promoting social issues, their efficacy
has been hotly debated over the years. A case study of the "God Speaks"
public service campaign is offered as an example of a non-traditional
campaign that provides insights for future endeavors.
"God Speaks:"
A Case Study of a Public Service Campaign
When most people consider public service advertising, they think about some
relatively bland campaign dealing with a social issue, created voluntarily
by an advertising agency and run by the media in donated time or
space. This traditional vision of public service advertising is no longer
the only model in operation. Although most nonprofits continue to develop
ads through the auspices of the Advertising Council, both the American
Cancer Society and the American Heart Association have used paid
advertisements in recent years (Ives 2004). When the organization's issue
is somewhat controversial, it may be forced to pay for media
placements. In addition, corporations occasionally pay for pro-social or
advocacy ads that deal with topics of relevance to their products or
regulatory concerns.
The purpose of this paper is to provide information about a specific public
service campaign that exemplified a hybrid approach (some paid ads and some
non-paid) during its run in the media. This approach may serve as a model
for other organizations seeking to use public service campaigns in the
future. The paper begins with a discussion of public service and social
marketing campaigns. Next the case example is described. This is followed
by a discussion of the lessons learned from this example.
SOCIAL MARKETING AND PUBLIC SERVICE CAMPAIGNS
Social marketing involves programs that are ultimately designed to
influence the acceptability of a social idea, such as raising awareness for
not smoking (Pride and Ferrell 1989). Although stimulated by an article by
sociologist G.D. Wiebe in 1951 (Andreasen 2002), the term was coined in
1971 to describe the use of marketing for social causes and has been
utilized to create a demand for social products, such as seat belt use and
AIDS research (Kotler and Roberto 1989). Over the years campaigns have
focused on such things as increasing church membership, raising money for
charities, and keeping America beautiful (Brenkert 2002). The basic
principle is that a desired response must be obtained from a particular
target market. Many definitions have been offered over the years, but the
most quoted comes from Kotler and Roberto (1989):
[T]he term has come to mean a social change management technology involving
the design, implementation, and control of programs aimed at increasing the
acceptability of a social idea or practice in one or more groups of target
adopters. It utilizes concepts of market segmentation, consumer research,
product concept development and testing, directed communication,
facilitation, incentives, and exchange theory to maximize the target
adopter's response (p. 24).
Based on this definition, social marketing's attempt to change people's
behavior may also involve changes in their attitudes, values, norms, and
ideas (Brenkert 2002). While there are similarities to commercial
marketing, social marketing is different because it focuses on resolving
social problems rather than on producing goods or services for a profit
(Brenkert 2002). Pride and Ferrell (1989, p. 764) provided an example of
how social marketing might work for a religious organization:
Church's marketing objective: To inform the public about the church's
doctrine and convince people to become members.
Member
Church
Religious values and services
Contributions, services, and
acceptance of values"
Most social marketing campaigns include public service
announcements. Public service announcements (PSAs) are messages sponsored
by non-profit organizations or government agencies; they deal with
significant social issues and run in donated time or space (Ad Council
2004; Murry, Stam, and Lastovicka 1996). The Advertising Council defines
public service advertising as "advertising that serves the public interest"
(Ad Council 2004). It should be noted that many advertising textbooks use
the initials "PSA" to refer specifically to public service announcements
(see, for example, O'Guinn, Allen, and Semenik 1998, p. 6), but the Ad
Council refers to "public service advertisements" and to public service
campaigns in its material.
Public service emerged as an advertising category with the founding of the
War Advertising Council during World War II. At that time, James Webb
Young, an advertising industry leader, suggested to his colleagues that
they could improve their public image by creating messages for social,
political or philanthropic causes (Berger 2002; McDonough
2002). Originally, advertisements were sponsored by government agencies,
and they appeared in donated media time and space, along with paid
advertisements supporting the war effort that were placed by corporations
(Pimlott 1948). One of the most famous examples was the World War II ad,
"Loose lips sink ships" (Atkin and Schiller 2002; Berger 2002).
Another war era campaign involved Smokey Bear, one of public service
advertising's most famous characters, who was born to educate the public
about the dangers of forest fires (Berger 2002; McDonough 2002). Following
the war, the Ad Council continued to work with various government agencies
and charities. Since this time, traditional PSAs have evolved. Over the
past six decades, mass media campaigns numbering in the thousands have
asked Americans to refrain from smoking, curb violence, get off drugs, and
pick up trash, all using public service announcements (Atkin and Schiller
2002). Today, public service advertising includes PSAs that run in donated
ad space and time, along with some public service ads that run in time and
space that is purchased. The Ad Council is still the major force behind
many public service ads, but other producers include non-profit groups such
as Partnership for a Drug-Free America and corporations that run social or
cause-related marketing messages (e.g., Anheuser-Busch's "Know When to Say
When" or Yoplait's "Save Lids to Save Lives").
While PSAs come in many forms, from television spots to billboards, they
are primarily used to increase public awareness of certain issues and to
influence relevant beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors (Reichert, Heckler,
and Jackson 2001). According to Andreasen (1991), social marketing
campaigns often deal with resistant behaviors that can be addressed using
PSAs. For example, it was reported that people who were exposed to the
public service announcements for the national "Take a Bite Out of Crime"
campaign, "exhibited significant increases over those not exposed in how
much they though they knew about crime prevention" and that exposure was
"significantly related to" increases in prevention activities (Kendall 1992).
Although PSAs are considered important tools in promoting social issues,
their efficacy has been debated over the years (Atkin and Schiller 2002;
Murry, Stam, and Lastovicka 1996). "The objectives of these ads are
education and awareness of significant social issues in an effort to change
the public's attitudes and behaviors and stimulate positive social change"
(Ad Council 2004), but often their efforts fall short. The debate over
efficacy has been fueled by the inability of these campaigns to emulate the
results seen in better-funded consumer products' advertising campaigns
(Murry, Stam, and Lastovicka 1996). Thus observers may wonder whether
public service advertising works. The answer often depends on whether the
campaign is appropriate for the mass media, "who the members of the target
audience are, how well the creative 'speaks' to them, how much exposure the
message receives in the media, and how well the PSA is supplemented by
other efforts" (Atkin and Schiller 2002).
Assessing the effects of a public service campaign often requires
comprehensive research. Copy testing may help determine whether the
message is presented clearly, but it will not tell whether the public's
attitudes or behaviors will eventually change. On the other hand, analysis
of public opinion polls or statistical databases may show attitudinal or
behavior shifts, but might not shed any light on whether the message itself
influenced the campaign's success or failure (Atkin and Schiller
2002). Such post-campaign evaluations are often prohibitively expensive
for non-profit groups.
A further complication in determining the progress of a public service
campaign is their reliance on donated media rather than paid media
schedules. This reliance on donated time or space means that such
campaigns cannot control the placement or timing of their messages in the
media the way advertisers who 'pay' for space do; instead they must 'pray'
for space (Salmon and Murray-Johnson 2001, cited in Atkin and Schiller
2002). The Kaiser Family Foundation examined the amount of airtime donated
to PSAs and determined that cable and broadcast networks provided an
average of 15 seconds every hour to public service advertising, which is
slightly less than one half of one percent of all television airtime (Gantz
and Schwartz 2002). Moreover, in recent years, some television networks
have been running their own public interest ads, featuring stars from their
prime-time series, in lieu of Ad Council ads (McDonough 2002). The
difficulties in measuring results, combined with the problems inherent in a
donated-media campaign, have resulted in a paucity of research in all
aspects of public service advertising.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHOD
This paper examines public service advertising through an in-depth case
study and analysis of the "God Speaks" campaign. This campaign attracted
the attention of the authors, who were curious about the source of the ads,
their intended effects, and why they disappeared when they did. More
specifically, this paper answers the following questions:
RQ1: How was the "God Speaks" campaign developed?
RQ2: What were the outcomes of the "God Speaks" campaign?
RQ3: What insights can be gleaned from this campaign?
The case study research method is appropriate to investigate a
contemporary issue within a real-life context where the researcher does not
have control over behavioral events (Robson 1993; Yin 1994, p. 8-9). The
case study method, which represents narrative descriptions of particular
cases, often uses archival methods to describe the end product of field
study, and may include a variety of qualitative and quantitative data about
a single subject (Poindexter 1998). "Researcher understanding…is deemed
within the humanistic perspective to arise from direct personal experience,
rather than by the manipulation of experimental variables" (Seymour 1989).
To answer RQ1, public information sources such as newspaper articles and
the "God Speaks" website were utilized. Although the "God Speaks"
organization was contacted repeatedly from June 2003 until March 2004, the
organization did not reply to the researchers. These sources did not
provide answers to RQ2, so we then relied on published national opinion
polls conducted by Harris, Barna Research, The University of Michigan, and
Gallup (with sample sizes over 1,000 and an average 3% margin of
error). Through an analysis of available, published research, we were able
to track some basic beliefs about how people viewed God and religion
before, during, and after the campaign. However, because the data were
originally collected for other purposes, they may not correspond to the
precise information sought. Nevertheless, this method does highlight
attitude trends over the course of the campaign and serves to inform future
research.
THE "GOD SPEAKS" CAMPAIGN
In June 1998, an anonymous client contacted The Smith Agency in Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida, and asked it to create what was to be a simple
advertising campaign with a simple message. The purposes were to remind
people of the presence of God in their lives and to reach people who had
drifted away from church attendance. Charles Robb, co-creator of the
subsequent advertising campaign said:
The idea was to get people to think about their spirituality and having a
relationship with God in their everyday lives…We didn't think that overtly
religious messages would be the answer here, but rather that this campaign
would have to be something contemporary yet totally unexpected. That's
when I thought of creating the series of quotes in 'God Speaks.' (Robb 2000).
Andy Smith, president of the agency, along with Charles Robb, came up with
over 100 "quotes" supposedly attributed to God, as a means of portraying
God as "a relatable guy" ("Signs from God" 1999). From this list, eighteen
"God sayings" were selected for the initial campaign (See Appendix 1 for
the sayings and sample billboards). They debuted on billboards in the
donor's home area of Broward County, Florida, in the spring of 1999; and
they engendered a remarkable swell of public support. The one-line
sayings, which were loosely based on the Ten Commandments, generated
attention, as local TV stations and newspapers featured the campaign (Case
1999). Each sign consisted of white type on a black background and
contained no sponsoring information (Robb 2000).
The original campaign, with a budget of $150,000, was intended to run for
three months, but the local media coverage brought the campaign to the
attention of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. The OAAA
decided to make the "God Speaks" campaign their national public service
advertising campaign for 1999 (Robb 2000; Veenker 1999). OAAA had
traditionally supported local communities by placing Ad Council public
service messages, such as drunk driving prevention, crime prevention, organ
and tissue donation, mentoring, and the United Negro College Fund ("Ad
Council Announces"). With the support of the OAAA, the campaign grew to
more than 10,000 displays across the country, with the outdoor industry
donating both space and production valued at $15 million ("The God
Campaign").
National coverage followed, with the story featured on National Public
Radio's "Morning Edition" and ABC's "World News Tonight," and in print in
The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, and Rolling Stone ("The God
Campaign"). "They [the billboards] are catchy and fun, and just maybe they
make us stop and think about some of the things God would be saying to us
if He were in the billboard business," said columnist Justin Kollmeyer
(1999). In December 1999, The Smith Agency won "Best of Show" for outdoor
advertising at the annual ShowSouth event in Atlanta, for the God Speaks
series ("God Speaks Billboards" 2000).
Stephen Freitas of Eller Media, coordinator of the campaign in Southern
California, told The Los Angeles Times that many commuters had called in to
express their approval for the signs and to note that the messages had
helped them reduce their road rage ("God Speaks Billboards"
2000). Overall, the campaign ran nationally from 1999-2001, when
pro-America messages and The Foundation for a Better Life campaign largely
displaced it in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks on New
York and Washington, D.C. (Clarke 2002).
The second phase of the "God Speaks" campaign launched in 40 U.S. cities in
late spring of 2000 and featured sixteen new outdoor executions themed "God
Speaks to Kids" (Siebert 2000). As with the original campaign, short
messages attributed to God appeared on a stark black background, but with
the new campaign the words glowed a bright orange gold, as though spray
painted on the billboard (Siebert 2000). Messages included such sayings
as, "Chill…Don't Kill" and "I'm Everybody's Homey" (Siebert 2000).
While the billboards are no longer formally in circulation, the God Speaks
message continues through its website (www.godspeaks.net). At this site,
visitors may read about the campaign as a "cultural and spiritual
phenomenon…that has spread like wildfire, and has touched hearts all over
the country--and around the world." To further the bond, visitors may send
God Speaks electronic greeting cards to other e-mail addresses, explore the
scriptural meanings behind the billboard sayings, chat with others on-line
about the presence of God in their lives, or even receive God Speaks daily
devotionals delivered each day to their e-mail address.
RESEARCH ON AWARENESS/BELIEFS ABOUT RELIGION AND GOD
Although the "God Speaks" organization does not appear to have evaluated
the campaign in a formal quantitative sense, the web site had this to say:
To date, the campaign has reached millions. The most rewarding aspect of
the phenomenon comes from the flood of e-mails from around the world. Many
people writing to express their thanks, others with wonderful ideas,
questions and desires to see more billboards in their community.
Due to this lack of formal evaluation by the agency and client, at least in
terms of published findings, we turned to syndicated research data that was
conducted during the years of the campaign in order to perform our own
indirect evaluation of the campaign.
Belief in God
Begun in 1956, The Harris Poll is a comprehensive series of surveys
measuring public opinion and covering a wide variety of subjects such as
politics, the economy, lifestyles, foreign affairs, sports and
entertainment, and health care. In surveys collected in 1994, 1998, 2000,
and 2003, the results indicated that an overwhelming majority of adult
Americans believed in God. Data collected in 1994 and 1998, prior to the
campaign's start, indicated that 95% and 94% respectively believed in
God. Data from 2000, during the campaign, showed that belief remained at
94% of Americans believed in God (Harris 2000). However, by January 2003,
that figure had dropped to 90% and a further drop to 79% occurred in
September 2003, when a "not sure" response was added to the question
(Taylor 2003a, 2003b).
Importance of Religion
The University of Michigan has published the National Election Studies
Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior, which provides political
observers, policy makers, journalists, teachers, students, and social
scientists with immediate access to research concerning public opinion and
electoral behavior and choice in American politics since 1948. Surveys
conducted every two years with over 1,000 respondents ask a number of
public opinion questions, including their views about religion.
According to data gathered in 1998 before the "God Speaks" campaign, 77% of
people said they considered "religion to be an important part" of their
lives. In 2000, during the campaign, the figure was 76%, while in 2002
(post-campaign) it was 75%. Given the ± 3% sampling error, it appears that
the percentage of people who considered religion to be an important part of
their lives was unchanged. Additional results from University of Michigan
surveys taken between 1996 and 2002 indicated that almost 60% of people
believed that religion provided "quite a bit" or "a great deal" of guidance
in their lives (Table 1).
Place Table 1 about here
Additional data on the importance of religion can be seen from nationwide
surveys of about 1,000 adults collected each year by a joint CNN/USA
Today/Gallup Poll. These organizations reported that 88% of respondents
considered religion to be a "very important" or "fairly important part" of
their lives prior to the start of the campaign in 1999. In the years
during and following the campaign (from 1999 to 2002), the percentage of
people who considered religion "very important" or "fairly important"
ranged from 85 to 88% of (Table 2).
Place Table 2 about here
Church Attendance
Since 1984, Barna Research has conducted an annual tracking survey of
America's religious beliefs and practices. A review of the State of the
Church for 1998 to 2002 indicated a fairly consistent pattern of attendance
at church services on a typical weekend. When asked if they had attended a
church service, in the past week, other than a special event (e.g., wedding
or funeral), roughly four out of every ten adults said yes. The low number
was 40% in 2000, and the high was 43% in both 1998 and 2002. Although
church attendance is actually a behavior, the strong attitude-behavior link
found by Kim and Hunter (1993a, 1993b) suggests that these results may be
fairly representative of underlying attitudes toward church attendance.
CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll results are consistent with the Barna Research
data regarding church attendance. Between 41% and 48% of survey members
indicated that they attend church or synagogue "at least once a week" or
"almost every week." These data are from polls conducted from January 1998
to December 2002 (Table 3).
Place Table 3 about here
Considering all of these data, it is apparent that the attitudes toward
God, attitudes toward religion, and church attendance behavior remained
relatively unchanged from what they were before the "God Speaks" campaign
began. In fact, attitudes seem to have dipped slightly by 2002 (after the
campaign had concluded). Thus, one could conclude that the campaign did
not influence attitudes or behaviors as the donor had hoped. This is
particularly striking, when one takes into account the reported rise in
church attendance following the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the
United States (Clarke 2002).
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
In this section and in the conclusion that follows, we address RQ3. A
look at the development and evolution of the "God Speaks" public service
campaign, along with an analysis of the public opinion research on
awareness/beliefs about religion and God and behavior, such as church
attendance, raises some additional questions concerning the campaign. The
lack of explicit research on campaign outcomes by the agency was a
disappointment. Unlike many public service campaigns, this one had
funding; and, as academics, we would have hoped that a small portion of the
budget would have been used to track results. It is possible, of course,
that such research was conducted but not made public. This does seem
unlikely, given the vast amount of other information available on the web site.
The extensive media attention garnered by the ads, along with the
continuation of the otherwise limited campaign by the Outdoor Advertising
Association of America, can be considered a measure of
achievement. However, none of the opinion poll research indicated that the
campaign was a success in terms of attitude or behavior change. From an
objective perspective, we must examine the possible reasons for why the
campaign appeared to be unsuccessful.
First, we must consider if this campaign presents further evidence that
public service advertising does not work. We reject this alternative
because there are other PSAs that have been effective. Bob Garfield (2002)
mentions Smokey Bear and "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk" as
examples of Ad Council campaigns that have been successful, and the
American Legacy Foundation won a Grand Effie in 2003 for it's "Infect
truth®" campaign (American Legacy 2003).
A second possibility is that PSAs, or any media campaign, would not work
for this particular issue. Religion and spirituality may be topics that
can only be dealt with through interpersonal, rather than mass,
communication. Evidence to refute or confirm this alternative is beyond
the scope of this paper.
Third, because the campaign ran only from 1999 through 2001, perhaps the
time frame was not sufficient to attain the desired results. The Ad
Council campaigns that have been cited as effective are ones that have run
for decades, and the American Legacy campaigns have been backed by
significant spending from the Master Settlement Agreement (American Legacy
2003; Garfield 2002). Advertising effects can be arrayed along a
continuum according to the degree of difficulty of influencing the
individual (Atkin 2002). At the cognitive level, awareness is relatively
easy to create, while other forms of learning, such as knowledge gain, are
more difficult to achieve with campaign messages. At the affective level,
beliefs, involvement, values, attitudes, and behavioral intentions tend to
be progressively harder to influence. At the end of the hierarchy,
behaviors can range from minor actions to major practices, with the latter
being the gold standard that is the most difficult to change and maintain.
Thus, the effectiveness of public service advertising is dependent not only
on the quality and quantity of the campaign messages, but on the difficulty
of achieving the intended outcome. While the awareness component of the
hierarchy is relatively straightforward, when campaigns seek to change
behavior, such as increasing church attendance, success is often dependent
on the behavior they are attempting to influence. Campaigns often have
higher chances of success when they choose goals that offer the greatest
benefits, while requiring the least amount of sacrifice, such as stopping
littering or buckling a seatbelt (Atkin and Schiller 2002). Although it
can be argued that church attendance is a relatively simple behavior with
little sacrifice, perhaps the campaign did not expressly portray the
benefits of increased church attendance. Likewise, additional time or
media exposure may have been needed to finish moving the audience through
the effects continuum.
Fourth, we should consider whether the medium in which the advertisements
were run was inappropriate. As a commercial entity, billboards have a
number of advantages, but just as many disadvantages. While they are
considered a relatively high frequency medium, they also garner high reach
levels if many boards are purchased in a specific area (O'Guinn, Allen, and
Semenik 1998, p. 392). With creative limitations dictating that messages
be short, it is often a challenge for advertisers to create interest and
associations between the advertising and the brand (O'Guinn, Allen, and
Semenik 1998, p. 446). Mainly, when the message is short and simple,
outdoor can represent an excellent way to both build frequency and attract
attention to the message. But a high reach does not necessarily indicate a
high recall of messages. Because of the nature of this medium, people
often look at billboards and fail to remember what they saw (Sissors and
Bumba 1992).
Lastly, one possible explanation for the small variation in poll results is
that they are limited by a ceiling effect. That is, attitude scores toward
God and religion may increase only up to a point. After that ceiling is
reached it is almost impossible to achieve additional improvement. For
example, when 94% of the population believe in God, it may be very hard for
any campaign to positively affect that attitude.
CONCLUSION
The debate concerning the impact of many public service campaigns has
raised questions about the mass media's power in influencing social
programs. The "God Speaks" campaign provides an interesting case study
that provides insights for future PSAs. Were it not for the fact that the
initial campaign was privately funded, this may not have been a social
cause worthy of support by the Ad Council or the media. This is not to
suggest that religion and spirituality are unimportant concepts. Rather
there may already be such high levels of "compliance" that limited public
service resources are better spent on causes where there is more room for
improvement.
"God Speaks" also illustrates the power of great creative. This campaign
went from a relatively small-scale program to a major national effort
because the ads were adopted by the OAAA. Thus the exposure was far
greater than originally planned. As would be true for any pro bono
campaign, the media must be willing to run the ads, and good creative
improves the likelihood that this will happen.
Finally, this case demonstrates the susceptibility of an unpaid social
marketing or public service effort to replacement by a more interesting or
worthy cause (i.e., the flavor of the month syndrome). In the case of "God
Speaks," the switch was fairly dramatic, but for other PSAs there could be
a slow death, with ads merely being placed in a less frequent
rotation. The only way to guarantee continued coverage is through paid
advertisements, and this requires a committed sponsor with a budget to
match that commitment.
APPENDIX 1
"What part of 'Thou Shalt Not' didn't you understand? —God."
"Keep using My name in vain, I'll make rush hour longer. —God."
"Big Bang Theory—you've got to be kidding. —God."
"Don't make Me come down there. —God."
"I love you. I love you. I love you. —God."
"Will the road you're on get you to My place? —God."
"Follow Me. —God."
"My way IS the highway. —God."
"Need directions? —God."
"Do you have any idea where you're going? —God."
"Let's meet at My house Sunday before the game. —God."
"C'mon over, and bring the kids. —God."
"We need to talk. —God."
"Have you read My #1 best-seller? There will be a test. —God."
"Loved the wedding, invite Me to the marriage. —God."
"That 'Love Thy Neighbor' thing—I meant it. —God."
"Need a marriage counselor? I'm available. —God."
"Tell the kids I love them. —God."
[--- ??? Graphic Goes Here ---]
Table 1
"Would you say your religion provides some guidance in your day-to-day
life, quite a bit of guidance, or a great deal of guidance in your
day-to-day life?
Date Some Quite A Great Religion Not
A Bit Deal Important
2002 19 18 38 25
2000 17 22 37 24
1998 19 23 35 23
1996 17 24 36 22
Source: University of Michigan
(Percentage Agreement ±3%, N = 1,800)
Table 2
"How important would you say religion is in your own life: very important,
fairly important, or not very important?"
Date Very Fairly Not Very No
Important Important Important Opinion
12/02 61% 27% 11% 1%
09/02 65 23 12 0
05/02 56 30 13 1
03/02 58 27 14 1
12/01 60 26 13 1
09/01 64 24 12 0
05/01 57 28 15 0
02/01 55 30 15 0
08/00 57 31 12 0
03/00 61 27 12 0
12/99 61 27 11 1
05/99 58 30 11 1
06/98 62 25 12 1
01/98 59 29 12 0
Source: CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll
(Percentage Agreement ±3%, N = 1,009)
Table 3
"How often do you attend church or synagogue: at least once a week, almost
every week, about once a month, seldom, or never?"
Date At Least Almost About Once Seldom Never
Once a Every a Month
Week Week
12/02 31 14 18 29 7
05/02 31 11 14 28 16
03/02 34 12 13 28 12
12/01 34 11 15 28 12
06/01 30 11 12 29 18
02/01 30 12 15 29 13
08/00 35 11 15 27 11
03/00 36 11 13 30 10
12/99 36 12 16 28 8
05/99 30 14 18 28 9
06/98 32 13 19 26 9
01/98 32 12 15 30 10
Source: CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll
(Percentage Agreement ±3%, N = 1,009)
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