Yes or No

Shamelessly lifted from Romenesko, this great poll result from a Texas newspaper:

Lack of World Knowledge

When it comes to what people know, the scariest part often comes from asking what young people know.

The World Savvy survey paints a butt ugly portrait of U.S. high school graduates, ages 18-24.

• Two-thirds could not name the Prime Minister of Great Britain
• Three-fourths could not name our biggest trading partner
• Nearly three-fourths could not place Afghanistan on a map

Okay, some of these are tricky.  That second one above, for example.  You'd think it's China, but it's Canada.  Who the hell thinks about Canada except maybe in hockey season?

A copy of the big fat pdf report is here.  It's full of interesting statistics, some scary, some comforting.  Want comforting?  Eighty percent said they're interested in world events and 83 percent believe diversity is an asset.  Want scary?  Only half knew Libya is in north Africa and nearly half thought English was the most commonly spoken language in the world (correct answer, Mandarin).

Oh, and a final fun factoid.  TV is the biggest source of info (no surprise) but online newspaper sites were the second most named source of info (kinda surprising) and print newspapers were third (damn surprising).

The web site summary has some excellent points about the relationships between curiosity and knowledge about the world such important democratic behaviors as voting.  Well worth the time.

Who is Influenced by Negative Ads?

It's campaign season, so what's better to talk about than negative political advertising.

I don't have all the details, but this brief description of an experiment suggests the greatest impact among the more knowledgeable and trusting of participants, "a segment of of the electorate that is smaller than it used to be."  A few key points to consider:

• It's an experiment.  You gain a lot of control and the ability to argue only the manipulation could have caused some effect. 

• But its weakness in validity.  The artificial nature of experiments can influence findings.

• And it's college students as participants.  Yes, psychology is the intensive study of the college sophomore and, as we all know, while scientists have linked college students to humans, the relationship remains unproven.

So I can't really say more than this without seeing the entire paper.  Also, full disclosure, I took a class with one of the authors a million or so years ago in graduate school.

Indeed, the greatest impact in terms of voters penalizing the incumbent for his alleged shortcomings was evident among those individuals who were knowledgeable about politics and who expressed a relatively high degree of trust in their political leaders – a segment of the electorate that is smaller than it used to be.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-negative-political-ads-voters-politicians.html#jCp

Indeed, the greatest impact in terms of voters penalizing the incumbent for his alleged shortcomings was evident among those individuals who were knowledgeable about politics and who expressed a relatively high degree of trust in their political leaders – a segment of the electorate that is smaller than it used to be.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-negative-political-ads-voters-politicians.html#jCp

ndeed, the greatest impact in terms of voters penalizing the incumbent for his alleged shortcomings was evident among those individuals who were knowledgeable about politics and who expressed a relatively high degree of trust in their political leaders – a segment of the electorate that is smaller than it used to be.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-negative-political-ads-voters-politicians.html#jCp

the greatest impact in terms of voters penalizing the incumbent for his alleged shortcomings was evident among those individuals who were knowledgeable about politics and who expressed a relatively high degree of trust in their political leaders – a segment of the electorate that is smaller than it used to be.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-negative-political-ads-voters-politicians.html#jCp

the greatest impact in terms of voters penalizing the incumbent for his alleged shortcomings was evident among those individuals who were knowledgeable about politics and who expressed a relatively high degree of trust in their political leaders – a segment of the electorate that is smaller than it used to be.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-negative-political-ads-voters-politicians.html#jCp

the greatest impact in terms of voters penalizing the incumbent for his alleged shortcomings was evident among those individuals who were knowledgeable about politics and who expressed a relatively high degree of trust in their political leaders – a segment of the electorate that is smaller than it used to be.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-negative-political-ads-voters-politicians.html#jCp

the greatest impact in terms of voters penalizing the incumbent for his alleged shortcomings was evident among those individuals who were knowledgeable about politics and who expressed a relatively high degree of trust in their political leaders – a segment of the electorate that is smaller than it used to be.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-negative-political-ads-voters-politicians.html#jCp

Trust Not

New Gallup media trust rankings are out and the news, sigh, is anything but good.  The table below says it all.

Mapping What People Know

Here's an interesting project that attempts to map "how political knowledge can be spread rapidly across big populations using social media."

I won't pretend to understand i all, but it's part of a trend at understanding, through big data, how information is spread via social media. There is so much promise in this work.  Anyway, just an fyi.

Fox & Friends & Polls

Yeah (alliteration alert), the folks at Fox & Friends are smarmy and smug.  They are also, for reasons mysterious, popular.  This morning, as I scanned the various news channels to catch what was breaking, the Foxers mentioned their own poll that showed Obama leading Romney both nationally and in three key swing states.

That the Fox friendsters would report a poll that looks good for Obama -- surprising.

That Fox friendsters would then spin a poll to make Romney look good -- not so surprising.

These Fox News polls are sound methodologically.  What's interesting is how the smarmeisters on Fox & Friends, after noting Obama's lead, then pointed out that among respondents who are "extremely interested" in the prez election, Romney scoots ahead of Obama.

Here's the problem.  Take their Florida poll, for example (detailed results here).  About 6 out of 10 in that state report being "extremely interested" in the campaign.  The total survey was of 829 respondents.  Fifty-nine percent of that = 489 people.  The margin of error?  Call it about 4.5 percent, meaning you'd have to be more than 9 percentage points ahead of the person for it to not be a statistical tie. 

Romney's sudden vast lead among these people?  Well well well within the margin of error.

The friensters at Fox of course glossed over this little methodological quirk, I suppose to make the Romney results more palatable to their discerning audience.

Don't get me wrong: I'm bitching here about the misuse of poll data, not who is ahead or behind in the poll.  It's the poll abuse I dislike, especially when trying to spin the results a certain way.  Yes, we all torture data sometimes, but in this case it's waterboarding to the extreme.

Earlier and Earlier

I tweeted this the other day, but I'm putting it somewhere a bit more permanent by noting how earlier and earlier my university keeps moving our Fall start date.  At this rate, we'll soon start August 1.  Calendar creep.