Conspiracy Theories ... Still Out There

Politico ran a story today about conspiracy theories that's worth a read if you're into them (as I am). It also got me thinking, so I dipped into my own data for some quick analyses. Who believes in a particular conspiracy theory? Basically, those who want to believe in a particular conspiracy theory.

So let's look at four popular theories below, two that you might call getting oxygen from the right, two from the left. The wacky right has Obama born outside the U.S. (birther thing), and the so-called "death panels" of Obamacare. The wacky left has the notion the government knew in advance about 911, and the idea Hurricane Katrina's flood waters were purposely aimed at poor sections of New Orleans.

This is what I did (nerd warning). I constructed four quick-and-dirty regression models on each of the four conspiracies above. That means I tossed a kitchen sink full of things into a model to let them fight it out and see which ones remain statistically significant, which are posers and drop out. Let's look at the results:

• Obama born outside U.S. -- Believers tend to be older, less educated, of lower income, female, read less newspapers, but more politically conservative and Republican. Also, even after all these statistical controls, watching Fox News made you more likely to believe this.

• Death Panels -- Believers tended to be younger, less educated, of lower income, Republican and conservative. Also, less likely to read a newspaper but, yes, Fox News watchers. Even after all these controls.

• Government Knew of 911 -- Believers were younger, less educated, of lower income (seeing a trend here?), non-white, less likely to read newspapers, less likely to watch Fox News, more liberal and more likely Democrat.

• Government Directed Katrina at Poor -- Believers were younger, less educated, lower income (sigh, yes), were more likely women, black, liberal, used less Internet news but read newspapers more, and less likely to watch Fox News.

What gives fuel to a conspiracy theory? Looking at the results above, it's a combination of two factors. Consistently, theories from the wacky left and the wingnut right are believed by those of lower socio-economic status. The second factor is quite simple -- people believe what they want to believe. In this case, liberals tend to believe theories that made George W. Bush look bad, conservatives tend to believe theories that make Barack Obama look bad.

Fox News deserves special mention. Even after a host of statistical controls, some of which were not significant in the models after all this other stuff is considered, watching Fox News is consistently related toward believing the anti-Obama stuff and not believing the anti-Bush stuff. Other media factors come and go, but Fox News is a special case.

MTV Redux

Rock the vote and all that stuff, including this story about MTV's latest attempt to get young people to participate in the political process.  Here's an interesting, and somewhat depressing, graf that sums it up nicely (and sadly):

First, MTV is gaming the election. “Data indicates that viewership of sports increased with fantasy sports, especially among women, so we want to translate that to voting by applying similar mechanics to the election,” Rzepka said.

Neil Postman had it right.  We're amusing ourselves to death.

Is it wrong to turn politics into a game just to attract young voters?  Not really.  Journalists, especially the TV folks, and most especially the cable TV folks, turned politics into a game long ago.  This is just the next unfortunate step.

As the story notes, "fantasy election gamers" earn points for registering to vote and tweeting and similar actions.  You get rewarded for watching debates or Meet the Press.  Hell, you get rewarded for watching a party's convention.  On that one I think we all agree -- someone deserves a reward (or several drinks) for sitting through those staged events.

So I come across with a mixed message above.  I find the whole idea of turning politics into a game as rather sad, and yet I recognize that journalists and TV talking heads did this very thing many years ago, so it's hard to blame MTV and anyone else from really really really making it into a game.

Sigh.  Sign me up.

Conspiracy Mode

The phrase political knowledge gets a lot of love these days, and not just when describing Sarah Palin (i.e., lack thereof).

Politico, that Bible of those who toil in D.C. politics, uses it often, most recently on a story based on Pew data about how Dems are enjoying the news less these days:

While more than two thirds of liberal Democrats surveyed said they enjoyed news in June of 2008 – as the country was about to sweep in its first Democratic president in eight years – only 45% felt the same this past June. The thrill is gone for moderate Democrats too, though to a lesser degree: their rates of news enjoyment slumped from 58% to 46% in the past two years. 

My googling of nytimes.com finds 939 uses of political knowledge. Fox News?  Only 15 uses of the phrase, most of them old.  Is there a partisan or ideological issue at play here?  Or merely the difference between a cable tv news site and the NYTimes and its deep, broad coverage?  Let's be fair, try a different cable TV channel.  A search of cnn.com turns up 352 instances of political knowledge being used, including this recent one about -- yes -- Palin. 

Perhaps Fox has a problem with discussing what people know. Or maybe the network simply doesn't want to raise the issue too loudly -- thus Political Knowledge and Palin be stuck in people's minds at the same time.

Nah, that can't be it.  I must be in conspiracy mode.