What People Know ... in Japan

Political knowledge is apparently rarely studied in Japan, or so says this abstract of a new paper you may or may not be able to access depending on whether you're on a college campus or not. That's okay. I'm here for you.

The authors find that "in line with previous studies in the US context, that knowledge is explained by education, gender, and politically impinged employment as base factors, with interest, efficacy, and civic duty playing a role as second-stage behavioral factors." It's good to see basic results confirmed cross nations and cultures. The media stuff, though, is interesting. Soft news depresses knowledge, in this analysis, while print and even television traditional news improve political knowledge.  As the authors note:

At the same time, our findings lend credence to previous work that raises concerns about the ‘infotainization’ of Japanese (and US) news programming (e.g., Taniguchi, 2007; Prior, 2005). Rather than demystifying or democratizing Japanese politics, softer programs may simply be perpetuating extant gaps between elites and the public.

In other words, soft news may maintain or even increase the knowledge gap seen in the public -- even in Japan.

U.S. Attitudes toward Nuclear Power in the Shadow of Japan

With all the devastating news from Japan, particularly the issues with the nation's nuclear power plants affected by the earthquake and tsunami, it's useful to revisit what people think in the U.S. about nuclear power.  One easy way to do this is to view polling questions, including the recent USAToday/Gallup survey after the reactor issues this week.

Respondents were asked March 15 whether they favor or oppose the construction of nuclear power plants in the U.S.  The results are an almost even split, with 44 percent favoring and 47 percent opposing (9 percent unsure).  Okay, both sides in the nuclear debate can take something away from this, but have opinions changed of late?  You'd expect so, given the news out of Japan.  A Pew survey last year, for example, found 56 percent of U.S. adults favored incentives for increased development of nuclear power. 

An argument could be made, though the questions are different, that the disaster in Japan has softened acceptance of nuclear power in the U.S.  But hold on.  ABC/Washington Post polls suggest less has changed than one might imagine.  These polls asked whether the U.S. should build more nuclear power plants.  In surveys from 2001, 2009, and 2010, the results look a lot like the ones asked just this week.  Forty-six percent favored more construction in 2001, 52 percent in 2009, and 49 percent in 2010.  In other words, roughly the same kind of split we see in this week's survey.

The takeaway?  Perhaps the survey a couple of days ago was too soon to truly judge current public opinion about nuclear power.  The same survey by this coming weekend could be much more critical about nuclear power plants, depending of course on how things go in Japan and the subsequent news coverage.

All we can truly hope for, of course, is good news out of Japan as it wrestles with these issues.

Even in Japan?

I've pointed to and blogged about what people know in the U.S., in the U.K., in various countries of Europe. Even Africa. So add Japan to the list. Like many, this brief piece is about the political knowledge of young people, a consistent concern no matter what country we look at.

As news consumption among the young suffers, so apparently does their political knowledge, or at least our perception of their political knowledge. As I've discussed many times before, sometimes this is right on target, sometimes it has more to do with the kinds of questions we ask rather than the answers they give. In truth this also explains, in part, the consistent finding that females know less about politics than males -- ask questions in which respondents are asked to identify female politicians and women do very well, thank you. I suspect if we construct political knowledge indices having to do with the public affairs issues that matter to younger adults then we may see a very different result. Certainly young people did better than ever before on quizzes about the recent U.S. election, an Obama effect.

It's another year, and the story remains the same. I'll try for something fresh in a couple of days, once I recover from overeating and over drinking and overspending.