Republican "miniverse" part deux

Its important to go back to the Iraq War and remember that Fox News viewers got the facts wrong on that one as well.

 

PIPA Study: "Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War"

The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) released a report entitled "Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War." They examined consumption of various news media and correlated the results with the following three misperceptions about Iraq War II:

· that Iraq was directly involved in the September 11 attacks and that evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found

· that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq after the war and that Iraq actually used weapons of mass destruction during the war

· that world public opinion has approved of the US going to war with Iraq

I have excerpted some highlights below:

"The extent of Americans' misperceptions vary significantly depending on their source of news. Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions. Those who receive most of their news from NPR or PBS are less likely to have misperceptions." (p. 12)

(p. 13)

"While it would seem that misperceptions are derived from a failure to pay attention to the news, overall, those who pay greater attention to the news are no less likely to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media, and to some extent those who primarily watch CNN, have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention." (p. 16)

"Among those who say they will vote for the President, those with higher exposure to news are more likely to misperceive and to support the war. The opposite is true for those who say they will vote for a Democratic nominee: those with higher exposure to news are less likely to misperceive and to support the war." (p. 19)

(p. 20)

I've discussed the issue of media bias with some of you - especially that of the "Faux News Network" - and this study illustrates one of the myriad reasons I'm so skeptical about their "Fair and Balanced" [sic] coverage. Rupert Murdoch has claimed that Fox is "challenging the established and often stagnant media," but Fox's popularity - outside of some excellent programming like The Simpsons - frequently relies on marketing salaciousness as entertainment and blatant bias as evenhanded news. Their ratings may be good, but popularity does not equal truthfulness. I don't fault Fox for disseminating the administration's lies about Iraq - all media outlets did, to some degree - but rather for their exacerbation of people's misconceptions in support of war and in opposition to the facts.

Not to make too much of one study, but I don't find it surprising that the media outlets most often derided as "liberal" (CNN, PBS, and NPR) had the most well-informed audiences outside of print. (As an aside, I heard about a study several years ago that compared people's estimation of their own informedness with their actual knowledge. It found that talk radio listeners - who rated themselves as the best informed - actually knew the least of any group surveyed.) If anyone has information about any study on media bias, regardless of results, please let me know; I'm always looking for more data.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols