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Cheap Diffusion of Knowledge

Let's reach back, way back, to The Westminster Magazine of 1785, to find discussion of newspapers and political knowledge:

 

I love the part "a road unknown to our neighbors" and diffusion of information at "a rate so cheap, as to be attainable by all."  Meaning, of course, newspapers.

Cool.

Oh Canada

Blame Canada's youth for crappy voter turnout.  Or blame TV.

A story on a study (different story on same study here) found less attachment to political parties and less a sense of civic duty when it comes to voting as key for youth -- that and watching news on TV.

They also found that “there is … no clear evidence that the decline in youth turnout can be imputed to changes in the electoral context. The most plausible hypothesis is therefore that youth turnout is declining because of changes that have occurred among young citizens.”

But what young Canadians know, that does matter.  As the story notes:

However, knowledge of the political scene in Canada was a strong determining factor in youth voting. Ninety per cent of youth voters who were able to correctly answer all three survey questions “used to assess political knowledge” actually voted, versus 24 per cent of youth who couldn’t answer any of them.

The Right Smile Wins?

When it comes to political research, there's no factor we won't explore in hopes of finding a clue as to who wins and who loses.  Party ID and policy stances, you bet.

But also how that smile.

A column from mid-November that I just found thanks to this report points to research suggesting how well a presidential candidate smiles can be the difference between being a winner and being a loser.

From the column:

According to research by Professor Albert Mehrabian of UCLA, how much we like a communicator depends on the “congruence” of three factors—words, tone of voice and non-verbal behavior. Fifty-five percent of what influences our judgment about that “fit” is non-verbal: the speaker’s eyes, face and an “attitude” that comes across in the body language.

I admit I'm largely unaware of this specific body of research, but it makes sense.  In the column, Jon Kraushar breaks down the last several presidential elections and the "smile factor" of each.  Read 'em yourself.  Fascinating stuff.  But, and this is a huge methodological but, I wonder whether the "smiles" and "grins" and "twinkle of the eye" are being fit to the data.  In other words, we know how those past elections came out, so it's easy to fit our perceptions of those facial expressions to the results. What's this tell us about 2012?  Nothing really.  Kraushar notes:

The secret of a winning presidential smile isn’t just in the mouth. Presidents also smile with their eyes, showing inner warmth or an amused twinkle, for example. Voters can detect the difference between the verbal and non-verbal communication of a Happy Warrior versus an Unhappy Worrier.

When I picture Obama vs. Romney, I see a tie and maybe, just maybe, an edge to Romney.  Obama vs. Gingrich?  Obama twinkles more, has better body language, plus Gingrich scares small children when he smiles.  But I admit this is merely my rather flawed and personal perception.

But any of us can play this game.  So have fun comparing twinkles and body language.  It may just matter.

Grrrrr. On Citations.

This week I've finished reviewing two manuscripts for major journals (one mass comm, other polysci).  Both manuscripts directly address an area I've already published in.  Neither cited me.  Grrr.

And more ironic, one was submitted to a journal in which I published the work a couple of years ago.  Doh.

Which makes you wonder about either how carefully someone checks the literature or how well their choice of search engines or applications do in finding key studies (yeah, calling my work key.  I can if I want to, so there!).

I can also end every graph with something in italics.

For fun -- and in a desperate need to stroke my own ego after the other two authors ignored me -- I checked to see who had cited me in the last few months.  The journals include: Political Communication, Communication Studies, Public Opinion Quarterly, Communication Quarterly, Political Science and Politics, American Behavioral Scientist, Parliamentary Affairs, Communicatio (out of South Africa), the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, and my favorite, the Chinese Journal of Communication.  Plus a new book about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. 

That's in the last few months.  Luckily, as my college promotion committee pointed out, I don't really have a national or international reputation.  No.  Not at all.  What a bunch of putzes.

What Fox Folks Know (or Don't Know)

A study out today is getting a wee bit of attention as it suggests viewers of Fox News know less than those who don't watch news.  Or, as the report says:

"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," said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. "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."

Let's establish a few important facts about this.

1. This is not a peer-reviewed study.  That's important to keep in mind.
2. Despite #1 above, the report lays out the methodology and tables nicely, so let's not get persnickety about academic publishing.
3. The questions tended to be about international news.  Especially on Egypt on Syria.  Not Fox's strong point.
4. But, despite #3 above, some were on domestic issues.
5. Question K5 in the report baffles the hell out of me.  It's about the Wall Street protesters are Democrats or Republicans (aren't they Independents, as one earlier study found?  That's not a choice, just "other").  And there are negative scores.  Weird.  I finally figured them out, sorta kinda, but it shouldn't be that hard.
6. There are a lot more Dems or lean-Dems than GOPers and leaners.  That's a bit odd at first, but these are folks in New Jersey, not a national sample.
7. And it's that last one, the fact it's folks from New Jersey, that makes the study of more narrow interest and utility. 

All in all, kinda interesting.  Not generalizable, and I might quibble with the questions and such, but it strikes me as a pro job with fascinating results. 

Studies and Stories on Knowledge (this week)

I have no major topic to write on, plus Thursday is a busy teaching day for me, so here's a compilation of various stories and studies that touch on what people know.

• Text4Baby (which I'd never heard of) is a free service where you text to get info.  A survey found the service helped participants to remember appointments and learn about health issues.

• Are small businesses immune to security threats?  Obviously not.  But a survey found small biz managers exhibited knowledge of threats such as keystroke logging, distributed denial of service attacks, website vulnerabilities and targeted attacks, exactly half indicated they need not have concern about any of it.  Essentially, they saw themselves as too small to attack.

• There's always one I really don't understand, like this study that found how ill prepared health care folks are about genetic mutation testing.  So am I.  You get these great disconnects in research.  As in: The surveys found that while 94 percent of physicians responded that they discuss genetic mutation testing with their patients, only 17 percent of lung cancer patients surveyed were aware of genetic mutation testing.

• Here's a survey about ... there being too many surveys.  Okay, only kinda, but this story touches on just that.  As one guy said: But he warned saturating the market with potentially conflicting data could mean valuable information gets "lost in the noise." It can be confusing having so many different surveys," he said. 

• And finally, we end with death.  Except boomers don't want to think about that, according to this story.  An Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll found that 64 percent of boomers - those born between 1946 and 1964 - say they don't have a health care proxy or living will. Those documents would guide medical decisions should a patient be unable to communicate with doctors.