Fox News Viewers Know Less Than Those Who Don't Watch Any News

[bush_cheney2004]

Neither do yours,Miss Saskatchewan...

(We'll all await your "so much for being ignored",drivel)

Why...you've already made an 'ignore' fool of yourself...again.

[Jack Weber]

Gotcha again,wannabe,,lol

[TimG]

And if that's not good enough for you, this poll echoes the findings of another study mentioned in the article that was done by the University of Maryland.

You can't be serious. Most of the questions were about irrelevant semantics. i.e the CBO may have said the health care reform bill won't affect the deficit but anyone with half a brain knows the CBO assumptions were way too optimistic so 'Yes' is a legimate response. More importantly - the question asked what economists thought - not the CBO. That is a completely different question. Pure deception on the part of the pollster.

For most of the other questions the 'correct' answers are disputable in the same way.

Edited November 26, 2011 by TimG

[cybercoma]

In typical Timmy style. Don't like the findings, make ridiculous claims about the testable and repeatable studies being flawed. And like a typical FOX viewer, you seem to suffer from the problem of making up your own facts. Edited November 26, 2011 by cybercoma

[TimG]

Don't like the findings, make ridiculous claims about the testable and repeatable studies being flawed.

BS. Sorry. Unlike you I look at the actual source material and actually engage my brain before accepting a result. In this case it is painfully obvious that the questions are flawed. I gave some concrete criticism to one questions which you are unable to rebut so you decided to go with an ad hom. Edited November 26, 2011 by TimG

[waldo]

The survey was done by Fairleigh Dickinson University through PublicMind, not Huffington Post.

And if that's not good enough for you, this poll echoes the findings of another study mentioned in the article that was done by the University of Maryland. That study also found that those who watched FOX News were "significantly" misinformed about political issues.

... additional studies:

re: Health Care => a 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation survey on U.S. misconceptions about health care reform ("ObamaCare"):

There were also differences by where people get their information with higher shares of those who report CNN (35 percent) or MSNBC (39 percent) as their primary news source getting 7 or more right, compared to those that report mainly watching FOX News (25 percent)

re: Global Warming => a 2010 Stanford University survey reflecting upon FOX News exposure and the viewers associated rejection of global warming, mistrust of scientists and belief that addressing global warming would incur a negative economic impact:

About two-thirds of Americans reported watching Fox News between 0 and 15 days during the last 30 days, including 38% of people who had no exposure to Fox News. About one third of Americans were frequent Fox viewers, including 15% of the population who watched Fox News every day.

As shown in Table 1, more exposure to Fox News was associated with more rejection of many mainstream scientists’ claims about global warming, with less trust in scientists, and with more belief that ameliorating global warming would hurt the U.S. economy. This is evidenced by the statistically significant and negative coefficients from the first five regressions and positive, significant coefficients from the last two. The coefficients estimate the number of percentage points change in endorsement of each attitude and belief that results from an additional day of Fox News viewing.

[MiddleClassCentrist]

... additional studies:

The Birther movement was a prime example of purposefully being fed misinformation.

Another example I remember was the UN atomic meeting where fox tried to make it look like the UN's symbol was made to look like an islamic flag... (The UN flag was modelled after an atomic model)

Purposefully misleading their viewers.

Edited November 26, 2011 by MiddleClassCentrist

[Michael Hardner]

Another example I remember was the UN atomic meeting where fox tried to make it look like the UN's symbol was made to look like an islamic flag... (The UN flag was modelled after an atomic model)

Purposefully misleading their viewers.

What would help would be media that depicts a reasoned dialogue so that people could make up their minds. Homogeneous opinion doesn't help people to think. This is why MLW is superior to television as a source of news.

Ultimately, it would be better for us to meet in person, locally, so we could see our neighbours and friends and realize that people with differing political views are not the crazy caricatures that some would have us believe.

Then we could start talking about solutions to our problems, instead of using political discussion as a way to smear false identifies.

[cybercoma]

... additional studies

Thanks for those. There appears to be many studies showing that FOX News misinforms its viewers, but TimG probably finds those flawed too.

[sharkman]

Fox shows regularly trounce the left's offerings, sometimes by a three to one margin. Skewed studies and polls are their only recourse. There's nothing better than hearing the lefties gnash their teeth.

[Bonam]

They controlled for education though. That should be very concerning for everyone.

Education has almost nothing to do with intelligence/stupidity.

[Bonam]

Ultimately, it would be better for us to meet in person, locally, so we could see our neighbours and friends and realize that people with differing political views are not the crazy caricatures that some would have us believe.

What kind of world do you live in that you don't see people with different political views in person? Almost everyone I know has totally different ideas on politics than the next person.

[Bonam]

In typical Timmy style. Don't like the findings, make ridiculous claims about the testable and repeatable studies being flawed. And like a typical FOX viewer, you seem to suffer from the problem of making up your own facts.

Unfortunately, a great many studies in the field of social "science" are deeply flawed in many ways. That's true for studies whose outcomes are favorable to any particular ideology. I have commented on this many times before. The studies suffer from self-reporting bias, selection-bias, small sample size, bias on the part of the researchers in analyzing and explaining the data, among many many others. The results of such studies can often be changed hugely just by very slightly changing the wording of questions, or by grouping/representing response categories slightly differently.

[GostHacked]

Thats the thing.... as this study and other studies shows fox does a terrible job at educating viewers about news and events. But so what? Their purpose is to make money for shareholders, by generating good ratings which allow them to sell ad space. From this standpoint Fox is a brilliantly run entertainment business. They understand their audience very well, and they know how to get them to tune in.

There is some good information on Fox. But when you look at the whole spectrum of MSM in the USA, you don't get much better with the other networks.

[cybercoma]

Unfortunately, a great many studies in the field of social "science" are deeply flawed in many ways. That's true for studies whose outcomes are favorable to any particular ideology. I have commented on this many times before. The studies suffer from self-reporting bias, selection-bias, small sample size, bias on the part of the researchers in analyzing and explaining the data, among many many others. The results of such studies can often be changed hugely just by very slightly changing the wording of questions, or by grouping/representing response categories slightly differently.

All that room for wildly varying results, yet study after study keeps coming up with the same results. How odd.

[TimG]

All that room for wildly varying results, yet study after study keeps coming up with the same results. How odd.

Two can play at the survey game: Conservatives are more informed about economics than Liberals:

We also show economic enlightenment by ideological

groups—the “conservatives” and “libertarians” do significantly better than the

“liberals,” “progressives,” and “moderates”—and we show that the finding about

education holds up when we look within each ideological group

http://econjwatch.org/articles/economic-enlightenment-in-relation-to-college-going-ideology-and-other-variables-a-zogby-survey-of-americans

The fact is the studies on FOX you referenced specifically picked topics where right of center people are likely to have myths that are not going to changed by news coverage (i.e. ObamaCare). This makes the studies are biased. You would likely get very different results if you picked topics where lefties have ideological blind spots such as with basic questions about of economics.

The bottom line is this type of science is extremely subject to bias and does not really deserve to be called science.

[cybercoma]

Except, they also controlled for partisanship in the first study, so it had nothing to do with conservatives vs progressives.

For someone that really analyzed the paper and found all kinds of flaws in it, you've certainly missed some very key elements.

[waldo]

and a double-down with another global warming study: Climate on Cable: The Nature and Impact of Global Warming Coverage on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC

An analysis of 2008 survey data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults finds a negative association between Fox News viewership and acceptance of global warming, even after controlling for numerous potential confounding factors. Conversely, viewing CNN and MSNBC is associated with greater acceptance of global warming.

[waldo]

re: Iraq War

“Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions.” For instance, 80 % of Fox viewers held at least one of three Iraq-related misperceptions, more than a variety of other types of news consumers, and especially NPR and PBS users

[wyly]

Two can play at the survey game: Conservatives are more informed about economics than Liberals:

nice myth....conservatives under GWB massive deficit, banking collapse, economic recession....alberta conservative government-deficit...devine conservatives sask nearly bankrupt that province....Mulroney conservatives, massive deficit oh ya those conservatives really understand economics :lol: ...and the harper conservatives will go the same way

[TimG]

Except, they also controlled for partisanship in the first study, so it had nothing to do with conservatives vs progressives.

Irrelevant to my point. Take any group that you want to 'dis' and construct a survey designed to highlight whatever blind spots that group may have. That is what your surveys did (at best). At worst, the survey questions were misleading and the so called 'correct' answers are not actually correct or debatable.

Frankly, I don't understand this need amoung left-of-center types to validate themselves by convincing themselves the 'other guys' are idiots. It suggests a real insecurity on your part.

[cybercoma]

It's relevant to your post because it didn't matter if viewers were Democrats or Republicans, if they viewed FOX News regularly, they were still highly misinformed. So the fact that people on the Left were misinformed just the same does have a little bit of something to do with your point about the studies having a partisan bias. You're saying people on the Right would fair poorer, but they controlled for their political leanings. People on the Left seemed to have the same "blind spots" if they watched FOX. The only reason it's irrelevant to you is that it completely contradicts your point.

Edited November 29, 2011 by cybercoma

[Jack Weber]

nice myth....conservatives under GWB massive deficit, banking collapse, economic recession....alberta conservative government-deficit...devine conservatives sask nearly bankrupt that province....Mulroney conservatives, massive deficit oh ya those conservatives really understand economics :lol: ...and the harper conservatives will go the same way

Shhhhhh!!!!!!

They are the only ones who can control the public purse by giving the public purse away to their legislative benefactors!!!!

Don't you understand???

[blueblood]

nice myth....conservatives under GWB massive deficit, banking collapse, economic recession....alberta conservative government-deficit...devine conservatives sask nearly bankrupt that province....Mulroney conservatives, massive deficit oh ya those conservatives really understand economics :lol: ...and the harper conservatives will go the same way

Alberta, solid. Sask under brad wall unemployment at 4%.

Trudeau well do we need to say anymore, then there's our best friend Quebec.

Mulroney put in policies that slayer the deficit and the interest payments from Trudeau kept Mulroney in deficit. Mulroney understood to get a free trade agreement which is the cornerstone of our economy. Heck your leftist friends held parliament hostage so that we have this massive do nothing stimulus.

I like the track record of the Tories on economics, and judging by the 2011 enough Canadians to give a majority gov't.

Stupid is as stupid does.

[cybercoma]

Depending who you ask 4% is considered full employment. Beveridgean economics puts full employment at 3%.