A World Public Opinion/University of Maryland poll on media misinformation on public policy issues.
Quote:
Following the first election since the Supreme Court has struck down limits on election-related advertising, a new poll finds that 9 in 10 voters said that in the 2010 election they encountered information they believed was misleading or false, with 56% saying this occurred frequently. Fifty-four percent said that it had been more frequent than usual, while just three percent said it was less frequent than usual...
Equally significant, the poll found strong evidence that voters were substantially misinformed on many of the key issues of the campaign. Such misinformation was correlated with how people voted and their exposure to various news sources.
Voters' misinformation included beliefs at odds with the conclusions of government agencies, generally regarded as non-partisan, consisting of professional economists and scientists.
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In most cases those who had greater levels of exposure to news sources had lower levels of misinformation.
There is a but....
There were, however, a number of cases where greater exposure to a particular news source increased misinformation on some issues. Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that:
* most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely),
* most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points),
* the economy is getting worse (26 points),
* most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points),
* the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points),
* their own income taxes have gone up (14 points),
* the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points),
* when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)
* and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points).
The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it--though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.
Voters Say Election Full of Misleading and False Information - World Public Opinion
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Fox makes stuff up = more voters misinformed
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Last edited by dc_dux; 02-16-2011 at 08:31 PM..
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