Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Fox News Makes You Dumb?
A Huffington Post piece addresses research I've written about previously, the surveys about what people know and the news networks they say they rely on most often. The column speaks for itself. Just passing it on with the caveat that it's all so very much more complicated (isn't it always?) than presented in the original study and in the HuffPo article. Too busy to dig into now.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Public Opinion
It's getting harder and harder to find out what people think.
Basically, we're having an increasingly difficult time reaching and completing surveys, according to a new Pew report.
You may not think surveys are all that important. You're wrong.
For a lot of reasons, surveys matter, and perhaps the biggest reason is that it's one way to know what people really think about an issue versus what some politician or corporation or TV talking head tells us what people think. It's an instant fact-check for the folks who try to convince us they really have a secret line to the public mind.
The lower the quality the surveys, the more error that creeps in, and the more open they become to methodological challenges by people who'd rather tell us what they magically know about public opinion rather than asking real people what they think about the issues of the day.
Basically, we're having an increasingly difficult time reaching and completing surveys, according to a new Pew report.
You may not think surveys are all that important. You're wrong.
For a lot of reasons, surveys matter, and perhaps the biggest reason is that it's one way to know what people really think about an issue versus what some politician or corporation or TV talking head tells us what people think. It's an instant fact-check for the folks who try to convince us they really have a secret line to the public mind.
The lower the quality the surveys, the more error that creeps in, and the more open they become to methodological challenges by people who'd rather tell us what they magically know about public opinion rather than asking real people what they think about the issues of the day.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Phrases I Hate
Occasionally I'll vent about phrases I hate. Today it's "speak truth to power." Why pick on this one? Saw it today in the The New York Times and it reminded me that, hey, I hate this phrase.
A Google News search found 98 instances of the phrase being used in the past month. The Huffington Post likes it a lot -- five times in the last month alone. And of course the NYTimes, the LATimes, the little-read Washington Times, and the Irish Times, all of these have used it. Hell, even Patch used it.
It's not that I dislike the sentiment -- other than people lucky enough to be in power, who could be against it? I detest a phrase that's become so easy to say or write. It's one of those first level phrases a good writer easily types, and quickly deletes. The lazy writers? They keep it in.
Yeah, I'm pointing at you Bill Keller in today's NYTimes. You should know better. I'll have to wrap my copy of the paper into a stick and smack you in the nose with aged news.
The last phrase I vented on was "I'm just saying," so let me be clear: I'm just saying that I hate the phrase "speak truth to power."
I'm just saying.
A Google News search found 98 instances of the phrase being used in the past month. The Huffington Post likes it a lot -- five times in the last month alone. And of course the NYTimes, the LATimes, the little-read Washington Times, and the Irish Times, all of these have used it. Hell, even Patch used it.
It's not that I dislike the sentiment -- other than people lucky enough to be in power, who could be against it? I detest a phrase that's become so easy to say or write. It's one of those first level phrases a good writer easily types, and quickly deletes. The lazy writers? They keep it in.
Yeah, I'm pointing at you Bill Keller in today's NYTimes. You should know better. I'll have to wrap my copy of the paper into a stick and smack you in the nose with aged news.
The last phrase I vented on was "I'm just saying," so let me be clear: I'm just saying that I hate the phrase "speak truth to power."
I'm just saying.
Friday, May 11, 2012
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):
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Babysitters
Some survey results I just can't resist, like the one reported in this news story about how a third of parents rejected a babysitter due to safety concerns.
A good babysitter, it turns out, is hard to find.
This is based on what appears to be a sound national survey of U.S. adults, etc. etc. I know it has no real what people know aspect, but what the hell, sometimes you just can't resist an interesting finding.
A good babysitter, it turns out, is hard to find.
This is based on what appears to be a sound national survey of U.S. adults, etc. etc. I know it has no real what people know aspect, but what the hell, sometimes you just can't resist an interesting finding.
Monday, May 7, 2012
If Everyone Voted . . .
Clarence Page has a column riffing off a study I discussed in some detail recently, about what Democrats and Republicans know (or don't know) about current affairs and political issues. The Page column goes further, however, in connecting what people know with voting and breaking partisan deadlock by expanding the electorate with more moderate folks.
The column itself is worth reading and his argument, while a bit simplistic, makes perfectly good sense. Of course it can't happen here, unlike Australia, but if everyone was required by law to vote, it would result in a more balanced electorate -- if by balanced you mean a whole lot of folks forced to vote who really don't give a damn and don't care and are largely indifferent (which is very very different than being independent or non-partisan).
So should everyone be required to vote? Only if everyone is required to read a good newspaper. As Gore Vidal said: "Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."
The column itself is worth reading and his argument, while a bit simplistic, makes perfectly good sense. Of course it can't happen here, unlike Australia, but if everyone was required by law to vote, it would result in a more balanced electorate -- if by balanced you mean a whole lot of folks forced to vote who really don't give a damn and don't care and are largely indifferent (which is very very different than being independent or non-partisan).
So should everyone be required to vote? Only if everyone is required to read a good newspaper. As Gore Vidal said: "Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."
Thursday, May 3, 2012
NPR Makes You Smarter?
Watching NPR or watching The Daily Show makes you smarter about politics. Partisan cable networks like Fox and MSNBC? Those make you dumber, at least according to a Fairleigh Dickinson national survey released today.
This is a follow-up to a November survey. I wrote about that one here.
Back to the more recent release. Respondents were asked about domestic and international affairs. To save you a clickthrough here's a couple of interesting grafs that sum up the results:
For those who love to dig deeply in these matters, the survey homepage offers details and you can find even more information here. It's worth the visit. Why? Because there's a hint here as to why more partisan-based news might be bad, especially for those who lean the other way.
If you check the second table at the bottom, the one called "Ideology - International Questions" you get a possible answer to what's going on. Look closely. The lowest scores are for liberals watching Fox and conservatives watching MSNBC. At the theoretical level we love the idea of cross-cutting news exposure, of hearing a side you may not normally agree with. It's healthy for democracy, or so the argument goes. But the result here suggests it's not particularly healthy for a person's political knowledge. Perhaps arguing with the TV has a negative effect on learning. Maybe the liberals watching Fox, or conservatives watching MSNBC, are just not smart enough in the first place and therefore suck at answering political knowledge questions. We can't tell from here, not without some more sophisticated modeling, but there's something interesting happening here, something I'd love to dig into if I had access to the raw data.
I'd dig deeper, but a giant pile of papers needing grading are perched on my desk, staring at me. There's fun material that perhaps I can explore later, when time allows.
This is a follow-up to a November survey. I wrote about that one here.
Back to the more recent release. Respondents were asked about domestic and international affairs. To save you a clickthrough here's a couple of interesting grafs that sum up the results:
However, the study concludes that media sources have a significant impact on the number of questions that people were able to answer correctly. The largest effect is that of Fox News: all else being equal, someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 domestic questions correctly — a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all. On the other hand, if they listened only to NPR, they would be expected to answer 1.51 questions correctly; viewers of Sunday morning talk shows fare similarly well. And people watching only The Daily Show with Jon Stewart could answer about 1.42 questions correctly.There's some wow here. And a few concerns. Let's touch on the wow factor first. The results suggest (and only suggest) that partisan-based cable news engages in a form of cog-sucking, as in sucking out cognitions (i.e., thinking, or facts) from its unlucky viewers. It doesn't really, of course, it's a lot more complicated than that and involves where people choose to get their news and gets all confused with -- as Cassino notes earlier in the press release -- such factors as education and interest. That's the main concern, the obvious methodological problems with correlations leading to cause-and-effect conclusions without statistical controls for the "usual suspects" (education, etc.) that tend best to predict what people know. Sorry, PhDweeb methodological moment.
“These differences may be small, but even small differences are important when we’re talking about millions of people,” said Cassino. “We expect that watching the news should help people learn, but the most popular of the national media sources – Fox, CNN, MSNBC – seem to be the least informative.”
For those who love to dig deeply in these matters, the survey homepage offers details and you can find even more information here. It's worth the visit. Why? Because there's a hint here as to why more partisan-based news might be bad, especially for those who lean the other way.
If you check the second table at the bottom, the one called "Ideology - International Questions" you get a possible answer to what's going on. Look closely. The lowest scores are for liberals watching Fox and conservatives watching MSNBC. At the theoretical level we love the idea of cross-cutting news exposure, of hearing a side you may not normally agree with. It's healthy for democracy, or so the argument goes. But the result here suggests it's not particularly healthy for a person's political knowledge. Perhaps arguing with the TV has a negative effect on learning. Maybe the liberals watching Fox, or conservatives watching MSNBC, are just not smart enough in the first place and therefore suck at answering political knowledge questions. We can't tell from here, not without some more sophisticated modeling, but there's something interesting happening here, something I'd love to dig into if I had access to the raw data.
I'd dig deeper, but a giant pile of papers needing grading are perched on my desk, staring at me. There's fun material that perhaps I can explore later, when time allows.
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