Monday, November 21, 2011

Maybe you should rethink your news choices


I have to admit a certain amount of schadenfreude with this news.
Fox News viewers are less informed than people who don't watch any news, according to a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University

The poll surveyed New Jersey residents about the uprisings in Egypt and the Middle East, and where they get their news sources. The study, which controlled for demographic factors like education and partisanship, found that "people who watch Fox News are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government" and "6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government" compared to those who watch no news.
...
Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson, explained in a statement, "Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News. Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all." Link
It shouldn't be surprising that when you watch purposely slanted "news", you don't actually gain real knowledge about the world.


No comments: