Online Vs. Print
I blogged earlier about Slate's little experiment in which a couple of journalists got their news for a few days from print and a couple who got their news only online. There is an audio here of their discussion after the experiment. Listen for a long time (only moderately painful) and you'll struggle to hear a conclusion or answer other than the sense of frustration by both sides as to the limitations of using only one source. I think that sums it up nicely. Today's informed individual relies on a gumbo of print, online, television, and radio, but these are not real people talking, they're journalists, so I doubt the frustrations they felt would be shared by a typical person.
Today's Idiot Box
This columnist, with ties to my college. Read it and weep for cogent thought and the English language.
Good Blog
A doctoral student blogs about research here. Good stuff. The latest piece discusses research on interpersonal networks. I'd like to see more PhD students doing this sort of thing, in part as a mental exercise, in part sharing significant research with the rest of the world.
Tax Cuts and Trust
And speaking of significant research, a Public Opinion Quarterly piece examines the role of political trust in support for tax cuts. Trust plays a significant role among liberals in support of tax cuts, but not so much among conservatives and moderates (who, let's face it, tend to like them anyway). As an aside, if I'm reading the tables correctly, the more knowledgeable you are, the less supportive you are of tax cuts. That's kinda interesting. Unfortunately the authors did not include media variables.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Perceptions of the U.S.
The Pew Center, in its typical brilliant fashion, has a new report out on global attitudes about the U.S. There's even a cool slide show here with audio by director Andrew Kohut in which he describes "a revival of America's global image in many parts of the world." I strongly recommend giving it a watch and listen. Also, there's a cool map where you can roll over countries, then click for specific numbers. Much fun.
The cause for this improvement in attitudes toward the U.S.? Barack Obama.
Western Europe and Canada is where we see the biggest image gains, but positive shifts are also seen in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. "The needle moved very little" in Muslim countries, however. I suppose it's good that at least the U.S. ratings didn't drop further. Then again, we probably hit a basement.
You see huge differences when comparing confidence in Obama versus George W. Bush from earlier surveys, supporting an Obama effect.
Should we care? Some people obviously don't. If people are pissed at us, so goes the reasoning, we must be doing something right. And we're the U.S., dammit, so screw 'em.
But what people know about the U.S. is important and negative feelings toward the country makes it even more difficult to pursue certain policies. It's like presidential politics. Strong support equals political capital that you can spend as needed, so in foreign affairs it helps for international public opinion to be somewhat positive toward the U.S., which frees leaders of those countries to work with us. Think of it as political cover to get what the U.S. wants done in other countries.
Who hates the U.S.? Lowest favorability ratings in 2009 are Turkey (14%), Palestinian Territory (15%), and Pakistan (16%). Highest come from Kenya (90%), Nigeria (79%), and South Korea (78%).
My favorite statistical blip? In Jordan the U.S. had a 1% favorability rating in 2003, otherwise over ten years the numbers were in the double digits. That's either weird data or some event soured attitudes about the U.S. that year.
There's also an interesting table in which people were asked if the U.S. would do the right thing in world affairs. The Pew folks show us the change from 2008 (Bush) to 2009 (Obama). Mostly huge improvements except, tellingly, Israel (-1%). No doubt this reflects nervousness on the part of Israel about Obama and his administration's approach to issues there, especially negotiations about a two-state solution. Something to watch this year.
The cause for this improvement in attitudes toward the U.S.? Barack Obama.
Western Europe and Canada is where we see the biggest image gains, but positive shifts are also seen in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. "The needle moved very little" in Muslim countries, however. I suppose it's good that at least the U.S. ratings didn't drop further. Then again, we probably hit a basement.
You see huge differences when comparing confidence in Obama versus George W. Bush from earlier surveys, supporting an Obama effect.
Should we care? Some people obviously don't. If people are pissed at us, so goes the reasoning, we must be doing something right. And we're the U.S., dammit, so screw 'em.
But what people know about the U.S. is important and negative feelings toward the country makes it even more difficult to pursue certain policies. It's like presidential politics. Strong support equals political capital that you can spend as needed, so in foreign affairs it helps for international public opinion to be somewhat positive toward the U.S., which frees leaders of those countries to work with us. Think of it as political cover to get what the U.S. wants done in other countries.
Who hates the U.S.? Lowest favorability ratings in 2009 are Turkey (14%), Palestinian Territory (15%), and Pakistan (16%). Highest come from Kenya (90%), Nigeria (79%), and South Korea (78%).
My favorite statistical blip? In Jordan the U.S. had a 1% favorability rating in 2003, otherwise over ten years the numbers were in the double digits. That's either weird data or some event soured attitudes about the U.S. that year.
There's also an interesting table in which people were asked if the U.S. would do the right thing in world affairs. The Pew folks show us the change from 2008 (Bush) to 2009 (Obama). Mostly huge improvements except, tellingly, Israel (-1%). No doubt this reflects nervousness on the part of Israel about Obama and his administration's approach to issues there, especially negotiations about a two-state solution. Something to watch this year.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
IBM buys SPSS
You have to be kinda dweeby to care, but IBM has apparently bought SPSS for $1.2 billion. SPSS is a major statistical package used to analyze data and is especially dominant in survey/public opinion work.As long as the IBM guys don't mess it up, should be okay. IBM press release here.
Bayes' Rule
How do people integrate or ignore new information based on their existing beliefs? Bayes' Rule. Or at least that's according to a study I'm reading that offers a mathematical formula to sum it all up:
P(A/B) = P(B/A) P(A) P(B)
That settles everything. Right? Wait, don't click that mouse!
Let's break it down, at least according to the article (abstract here). A = your existing belief, B = new information. The new belief, the stuff to the left of the equals sign above, is equal to the product of our prior belief and "the likelihood that B would occur if A was true."
Confused? Me too. Forget the math. Thankfully a graph or two later the authors tell us Bayes' Rule "does not provide a complete normative standard." Translation: it doesn't work all that well in the real world.
The study as a whole has to do with discomfirmation biases, how we selectively deal with information, which is obviously of interest to anyone studying political communication and how people make sense of their political world. Basically they find people cannot ignore their prior beliefs when dealing with new information. People see congruent arguments (ones that fit their own beliefs, called congruence bias) to be stronger -- even if they're not.
Some other interesting results: sophistication (often a function of political knowledge) can moderate disconfirmation bias (but not congruence bias). In other words, politically knowledgeable folks are a little less likely to disbelieve a message that is against their beliefs as compared to those who are less knowledgeable, but it plays no role in how people judged messages that agreed with their point of view as being stronger than it actually is.
I hope that made sense.
P(A/B) = P(B/A) P(A) P(B)
That settles everything. Right? Wait, don't click that mouse!
Let's break it down, at least according to the article (abstract here). A = your existing belief, B = new information. The new belief, the stuff to the left of the equals sign above, is equal to the product of our prior belief and "the likelihood that B would occur if A was true."
Confused? Me too. Forget the math. Thankfully a graph or two later the authors tell us Bayes' Rule "does not provide a complete normative standard." Translation: it doesn't work all that well in the real world.
The study as a whole has to do with discomfirmation biases, how we selectively deal with information, which is obviously of interest to anyone studying political communication and how people make sense of their political world. Basically they find people cannot ignore their prior beliefs when dealing with new information. People see congruent arguments (ones that fit their own beliefs, called congruence bias) to be stronger -- even if they're not.
Some other interesting results: sophistication (often a function of political knowledge) can moderate disconfirmation bias (but not congruence bias). In other words, politically knowledgeable folks are a little less likely to disbelieve a message that is against their beliefs as compared to those who are less knowledgeable, but it plays no role in how people judged messages that agreed with their point of view as being stronger than it actually is.
I hope that made sense.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Race
Race has returned as a topic of discussion. We had Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, we had her role in a decision concerning promotion of firefighters, and of course the recent brief arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. What people know or think about race is, of course, heavily influenced by their own race or personal experiences.
There is no survey data out yet on the Gates arrest, but there are some good questions over time that attempt to tap what we think about affirmative action and other racial/ethnic issues. Pollingreport has this group of results that are interesting to skim. Scroll down to the NBC/Wall Street Journal results. The percentage of people who say affirmative action should be ended dropped in the latest survey, which I find kinda interesting. In 1995, 40 percent said it should be ended. It hit a high of 43 percent in 2003 but earlier this year it was down to 28 percent. That's a helluva drop, no doubt tied to the Sotomayor nomination.
Perhaps the Obama election led to a dramatic shift, but I thought the firefighter case might offset some of that. Apparently not. About one-third of Americans, according to a CNN poll, thought there should have been a new test, roughly the number seen among those who want an end to affirmative action. A shift has happened, and I suppose Obama's election may have played a major part. It'll be interesting to see the numbers in a year or so to see whether this is a statistical blip in what people think about race, or it's something more permanent.
There is no survey data out yet on the Gates arrest, but there are some good questions over time that attempt to tap what we think about affirmative action and other racial/ethnic issues. Pollingreport has this group of results that are interesting to skim. Scroll down to the NBC/Wall Street Journal results. The percentage of people who say affirmative action should be ended dropped in the latest survey, which I find kinda interesting. In 1995, 40 percent said it should be ended. It hit a high of 43 percent in 2003 but earlier this year it was down to 28 percent. That's a helluva drop, no doubt tied to the Sotomayor nomination.
Perhaps the Obama election led to a dramatic shift, but I thought the firefighter case might offset some of that. Apparently not. About one-third of Americans, according to a CNN poll, thought there should have been a new test, roughly the number seen among those who want an end to affirmative action. A shift has happened, and I suppose Obama's election may have played a major part. It'll be interesting to see the numbers in a year or so to see whether this is a statistical blip in what people think about race, or it's something more permanent.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
News Quiz
There's a Facebook app designed specifically for the New York Times to quiz your knowledge of current events. It's typically five questions. I only got a 60, three out of five. Sad. Only works if you have a Facebook account (and who doesn't?). I'm not sure why it's important to know how many full-blown press conferences President Obama has had, but that's one of those I missed. Seems trivial in the extreme. I put answered it was his fourth and the correct answer was the fifth. Sheesh.Also ... away from a consistent Internet connection for a few days.
Graphics and the NYT
So I'm looking at a slideshow of graphics at The New York Times, which is kinda neat in a dweeby sort of way (I'm a journalism prof and a PhDweeb), and it occurs to me that this tells us something and what people know, or at least how people learn from the news.You can see a list of slides about visualizing data here. The NYTimes is halfway down the list.
What's kinda interesting is the source material for Times graphic charts from 2000-2009. If not for the feds, I'm not sure what they'd put in charts. Census Bureau data was used for 852 charts, the Bureau of Labor Statistics used for 844. The World Bank is a distant third with 118. I admit that kinda surprised me.
The graphic to the upper right is also from the slideshow and is designed to, in a glance or three, show us where we spend our money (according to, obviously, fed data). You really need to check out the slideshow to see it well. The point is -- in many ways -- we learn better visually than raw tables and text. Yeah yeah, pictures and thousand words, but it's true, especially when dealing with complex data.
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