War hawks less informed?On the other hand, this Kevin Drum post is just stupid. Drum links approvingly to this survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes showing that those who watch FoxNews exclusively for their news are more likely to have a misconception about the war on terrorism than other news consumers on the issues of Iraq links to al Qaeda, world opinion on the war, and WMDs. This is supposed to mean that FoxNews watchers are less informed than others on this issue. But these results would have been reached even if FoxNews viewers were equally informed as others. Consider the same survey where everyone who participated is not informed at all about any of the issues asked. The survey would still show that FoxNews viewers are more uninformed on these issues. Why is that? When forced to guess, conservatives probably would choose the answers favorable to war, while liberals would choose answers against. Even though the two groups are equally uninformed, the survey would show that the liberals were more informed because they would be more likely to guess correctly, because of the questions involved. And since generally conservatives watch FoxNews more than liberals, it would show that FoxNews viewers are less informed. What if a similar survey were done on issues where liberals were more likely to be wrong than conservatives by guessing based on their worldview? Would it still show that FoxNews viewers were less informed? Let's pick, say, environmental issues. Which group would be more likely to be misinformed on these issues when asked the following questions? 1. Did Bush reject the Kyoto Treaty after Congress approved it? (It was actually rejected 95-0 on a preliminary floor vote during the Clinton administration)Awaiting the results ... |
Comments:
Post a Comment
