Scary

[andrewducker]

A brief analysis of misperception by news network here.

In a series of polls from May through September, the researchers discovered that large minorities of Americans entertained some highly fanciful beliefs about the facts of the Iraqi war. Fully 48 percent of Americans believed that the United States had uncovered evidence demonstrating a close working relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Another 22 percent thought that we had found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And 25 percent said that most people in other countries had backed the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein. Sixty percent of all respondents entertained at least one of these bits of dubious knowledge; 8 percent believed all three.

The researchers then asked where the respondents most commonly went to get their news. The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were "the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions." Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three. Over at CBS, 71 percent of viewers fell for one of these mistakes, but just 15 percent bought into the full trifecta. And in the daintier precincts of PBS viewers and NPR listeners, just 23 percent adhered to one of these misperceptions, while a scant 4 percent entertained all three.

Comments

hmm (lies, damn lies and ...)

[josephgrossberg.livejournal.com]

"8 percent believed all three"

Hmmm ... that bit is often omitted, given the mistaken impression that around 1/5 of Americans are totally wrong on these points.

Also, I read an interesting analysis (which I didn't blog, much to my chagrin -- because I can't find it now) that analyzed that poll from a different perspective.

<paraphrasing>
Namely, in every case, the right answer to the question is "anti-War", and therefore the poll aims to show how many people are mistaken and pro-War.

If, instead, they asked questions like "Did the US government play a major role in arming Saddam Hussein?" or the like, you would have found that Fox News viewers were correct far more often than the NPR audience.
</paraphrasing>

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

Amazing. Just amazing. I will steal. :-)

I particularly liked:

in the case of those who primarily watched Fox News, greater attention to news modestly increases the likelihood of misperceptions

So you're better informed if you snooze through anything Rupert Murdoch puts out. I always knew it! :-)