How to become less informed

[Moonlight Graham]

Since when did voter turnout equate with non-ignorance? It seems to me that the decision to stop banging one's head against a wall is a mark of intelligence.

By your logic North Korea with it's 99% voter turnout should be the most advanced and enlightened country on the planet.

If you keep the debate to western democracies and not totalitarian regimes, my logic is backed up many research studies.

Here's a peer-reviewed scholarly journal Canadian research study on voter turnout: “Accounting for the Age Gap in Turnout.”

Finally, we turn to information and interest. Past work has shown political

interest and political information to be strong predictors of voting in Canada

(Blais et al., 2002, 52–53). The higher one’s interest is in politics and the more

political information — knowledge — one has, the more likely one is to vote.

Another study by Elections Canada researchers:

Political Engagement Factors:

In addition to socio-demographic factors, people’s decision of whether to vote or not to

vote is likely affected by their engagement in politics. In table 3, we begin by considering

people’s interest in politics. Not surprisingly, those who profess a high interest in

politics are more likely to vote. Indeed, among those aged 18–24 the gap is some

21 percentage points between those who express a medium or high general interest in

politics and those who express a low interest. This gap grows further to 28 percentage

points among those aged 25–30.

A similar pattern emerges according to political information, which is measured either as

a share of correct answers to a series of factual questions or is evaluated by an

interviewer (see Blais et al. 2009).8 Among those aged 18–24, those who are regarded as

having medium or high political information vote at a rate 18 percentage points higher

than those with low information. This gap grows to 28 percentage points among those

aged 25–30. As with interest in politics, information about politics plays a very important

role in the decision to participate in federal elections.

There is a clear trend in how much one is politically informed and their likelihood of voting, at least in Canada. i'd imagine the trend is very similar in other western democracies. Though it would be a leap in logic to say that just because country A has a slightly better turnout rate than country B, that country A is more informed. There are likely other factors/variables to consider.

[TimG]

Is anyone here surprised by the findings of this study? No innocents but, Fox News certainly lives up to its reputation.

The study choose "facts" which generally go against the narrative preferred by people on the right side of the spectrum. It comes as no surprise that viewers of right leaning news sources would disagree.

It would be fairly easy to construct a survey that would show left leaning viewers to be more uninformed.

For example;

1) Do you think that the US government was involved in the 9/11 attack?

2) Do concealled Handguns reduce crime?

3) Do rent controls decrease the amount of affordable housing?

4) Do minimum wage laws increase unemployment?

etc.

Here is a study that did that:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.html

Obviously, the MSM has no interest in reporting a study that shows their viewers are economic illiterates so it was not widely publicized yet the MSM is lapping up this study bashing Fox.

Edited December 19, 2010 by TimG

[DrGreenthumb]

B_C may be running out of Canadians who are willing to generalize about Americans.

So, like any good repairman he's fixing the problem but also putting himself out of a job.

Or it could be that people have done like me and put him on the "ignore" list. There are only a couple of the most outwardly ignorant that I have used this function on, but it does make the place much more pleasant.

[eyeball]

If you keep the debate to western democracies and not totalitarian regimes, my logic is backed up many research studies.

Here's a peer-reviewed scholarly journal Canadian research study on voter turnout: “Accounting for the Age Gap in Turnout.”

Another study by Elections Canada researchers:

Political Engagement Factors:

There is a clear trend in how much one is politically informed and their likelihood of voting, at least in Canada. i'd imagine the trend is very similar in other western democracies. Though it would be a leap in logic to say that just because country A has a slightly better turnout rate than country B, that country A is more informed. There are likely other factors/variables to consider.

Your study is focused on explaining the turnout rate gap between older and younger voters not ignorant versus non-ignorant. That said, I can't help but conclude that the factor affecting why older voters tend to be more cynical than their younger cohorts is an indication of the experience that comes with age, coupled with the intelligence to realize that banging your head against a wall is probably a waste of time and effort.

Moreover, it remains to be explained why younger people are less interested in and informed about politics than their older fellow citizens.

They probably haven't felt as disaffected by the way they're governed yet but this probably hasn't stopped them from noticing how many of their parents or older community members have been.

As for voting being mandatory in totalitarian countries some democracies require citizens to vote as well. I'd have no problem with that and would welcome it for better or worse just for the sake of change alone.