Life Without Colbert & Stewart

The writers strike is no big deal, except for one thing -- Colbert and Stewart are in reruns.

At first this was okay. They're funny guys, even in reruns, even when you know the punchline, but now we have a presidential campaign heating up and many are left floundering without the insight of these two faux political pundits.

Except not so faux.

These guys carry some weight, some heft. They carry something. Anyway, a lot of people turn to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for fun and, oddly, to get their news. I've done research on this. The Pew Center has infamously reported how many people say they get their news from such programs. I won't repeat the numbers here, but they are significant ... especially among young viewers.

Who wins? Conservatives and Republicans, I suspect, though Hillary Clinton and John Edwards get their fair share of abuse. Huckabee (my likely GOP vp candidate) is not getting his dose of satiric abuse. Fred Thompson (from my hometown!) would be getting hit too, but he's so asleep at the campaign wheel that it doesn't matter.

Honest. The writers strike matters. It matters because we're missing our daily satire, our faux news. And since there is research that suggests The Daily Show's "coverage" of news is equal of that seen on the nightly broadcast networks, this means something. I don't know exactly what the hell it means, but I suspect what people know about the campaign is affected, if not how much they laugh about it.

Media, Talk, and What People Know

There has been a growing body of scholarly work that examines our interpersonal networks as opposed to media consumption as reasons for what we think, how we act, and what we learn. Some of it I've covered before, such as the fact that our personal networks are more and more made up of people like ourselves. Thus we tend to think our viewpoints are shared by more people, when it turns we are merely getting a reflection of our own views.

Neat stuff. One study looks at young people and the role of talking to friends about politics versus using the media. The results are not surprising. Or maybe they are.

1. Young people use the media to have something to talk about with friends, but they learn more from these conversations than they do from the media.
2. Give young people a little information and they often want more, especially if that initial information is engaging (like a debate, so we'll find out if the infamous YouTube debates matter in later research. I'm guessing ... maybe).
3. Conflicting information baffles young people. This is probably due in part to their lack of base information, so they struggle to deal with competing arguments. The study doesn't address this, but I can see a problem here. What if young people, who struggle with conflicting info, say the hell with it and search out a single source to tell them like it is? The result is a lack of exposure to competing arguments. Not good for them, not good for democracy.
4. Young people love the Internet. This may have something to do with the findings in #3 above, because the Net is full of conflict, kinda like talk radio on acid.
5. Over a third of young people report talking about politics on a daily basis. Wow! News organizations need to find a way to tap into this and sell the idea that they can provide young people with info for those conversations. This is an old uses and gratifications approach, for those of a PhDweeb persuasion.
6. Young people see the mainstream news media as somewhat credible, but less than their friends. Not a good development.

Overall, this study and a host of others are looking at media, personal networks, and young people to help us understand what the opinion climate might look like in a few years. After reading a lot of this stuff, I'd like to say I'm hopeful. I'd like to say we'll be okay.

I''d like to, but I can't.

Media Matter: Evidence from Britain

A new study out of the U.K. suggests that how much you know about public affairs has a direct effect on likelihood to vote, and that the media play an indirect -- but vital -- role in getting people to vote.

What people know "raises voter participation in clearly causal fashion." The usual socio-demographic factors matter too, like education and income. Late in the paper the author tells us "that political salience and the coverage given by mass media play a very important role in increasing voters' knowledge of political matters, in spite of their negligible direct impact on turnout."

This is researchspeak, which means basically that looking for a direct media relationship is not going to work. The media make people more informed, which in turn makes them more likely to actually participate in a democracy.

The effect is there, you just gotta know where to look for it.

Colbert and Name Recognition

Stephen Colbert may (or may not) (or just may again for the hell of it) run in the South Carolina presidential primary as a Democrat (and a Republican) or (both) or (neither).

This blog is about what people know -- in other words, what they learn (or don't learn) about the correct use of parentheses. Oh, and what and how they learn about politics and public affairs. And Stephen Colbert.

Colbert is serious. He means business. And he will pander beyond compare, and that's saying a helluva lot given the cast of characters we presently have running for the second highest office in the land (after being a Red Sox starting pitcher). Fear him. Let's say for the sake of argument he goes through with it. Let's say he's on the South Carolina ballot, or ballots, in which tens of people statewide will participate come primary time. Who does he hurt? Who does he make cry?

Hell if I know. I live in Georgia.

From an academic PhDweeb standpoint, his candidacy offers all the theoretical juice one could hope for. He's got name recognition. He's got an arching eyebrow. He's got the vote of everyone -- except the bears. Lucky for him he is not running in a state loaded with the huge, dangerous, man-eating mammals. Like New Hampshire or New York or Iowa.

On a serious note, whenever someone like this does toss his arching eyebrow into the ring, it brings a few more people to the table to mix metaphors and pay attention to the campaign. It'll be interesting to see if Colbert's name recognition matches that of other well known candidates.

Gender Revisited

Some time back I blogged about research in gender and political knowledge. The short version is this: studies repeatedly find guys do better than gals on tests of public affairs knowledge. One explanation? Men answer questions even when they don't know the answer and sometimes get it right, while women do not.

Here's another theory tested. Unfortunately I can only point to an abstract, not the full text, but the upshot is you can improve how women do when you ask questions that include female politicians.

This makes perfect sense.

One of my own studies explored with conservative Christians do so poorly on tests of political knowledge. In part it's demographics, but when you ask religious questions about candidates (their affiliation) versus what state they are from, the conservative Christians do not fare so poorly. The upshot? Ask people what they know, in a certain domain, and they do better than previous research suggests.

This has a lot to do with cognitive accessibility and all that rot. Fun stuff if you're into research, but translated it just means we have certain things that are important to us and when questions are posed in such a way as to tap those interests (versus those of scholars and news junkies) then we do okay. Better. Not great, mind you, but better.

People Know Toys

Check out the results of a Pew study results above.

People know toys.

Eighty-eight percent knew tainted food or dangerous toys were from China. And 78 percent knew the Democrats control the House.

Toys and the House of Representatives. Kinda fits together.

Frankly I am surprised 41 percent correctly identified the U.S. Sec of Defense and about a third knew a Hispanic was running for president (though I kinda like the guy).

Six percent of U.S. adults surveyed answered all 12 knowledge questions correctly. These are people who need to get a life. In the good news department, only about 1 percent could not answer any of the questions correctly. For the mathematically inclined, the average was 7 of 12 correct, with men slightly outscoring women, older respondents outscoring those irritating youngsters, and better educated people besting those with less education.

All stuff you'd expect. No surprises there.

The report is available online, for those who like to keep up with what people know.

Civic Literacy

A report suggests that students at elite universities are either dumb or not getting their money's worth, at least when it comes to the ability to answer basic civics questions accurately. The questions focus on America's history and institutions, the kind of stuff we ask in surveys to discover what people know, their basic "civics" or "textbook" knowledge.

Who sucked? Yale, Duke, and Cornell.

Who kicked ass? Eastern Conn. State University, Marian College in Wisconsin and Murray State in Kentucky.

The appendix to this study is damned confusing. What the hell is "value added" and why are the numbers lower for the supposedly bad performers? It's not explained very well and like a lot of pr releases, the quality is -- ahem -- missing. And there is probably some political axe to grind her, one I don't have the time or energy to chase down. And there is the question of how well those Yale, et al., kids might do compared to those Marian College grads in synthisizing a lot of information and composing arguments.

In other words, it's unclear what we're measuring here other than ability to answer straightforward factual questions. Still, you'd think those Ivy guys and gals would do better. Wassup with that?

Take the quiz yourself if you want to be humbled.

Oh, and my school, The University of Georgia, scored #32. Beat out again by the University of Florida, at #22.

At least we beat Duke.