Study hits war views held by Fox fans (moronic study alert)

Baltimore Sun ^ | 10.4.03 | David Folkenflik

[mhking]

Heavy viewers of the Fox News Channel are nearly four times as likely to hold demonstrably untrue positions about the war in Iraq as media consumers who rely on National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System, according to a study released this week by a research center affiliated with the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs.

"When evidence surfaces that a significant portion of the public has just got a hole in the picture ... this is a potential problem in the way democracy functions," says Clay Ramsay, research director for the Washington-based Program on International Policy Attitudes, which studies foreign-policy issues.

Fox News officials did not return repeated requests yesterday for comment on the study.

Funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation, the study was conducted from June through September. It surveyed 3,334 Americans who receive their news from a single media source. Each was questioned about whether he held any of the following three beliefs, characterized by the center as "egregious misperceptions":

[Howlin]

GALLUP: Americans still think media too liberal

Heh.

[rightbanker]

The cynic in me -- which is a big broad streak of my personality -- responds to this by saying "Of course, it's true." People, left or right or center, mostly want confirmation of what they already believe. they don't want their beliefs challenged and dissected. The media, right wing media included, has figured this out. So they basically play to their targeted audiences. The targeted audiences watch those news programs targeted at them in order to be comforted and "confirmed" not to be discomforted and disconfirmed.

That's why people who stray to far from the party line on boards like this or RAT underground get banned. We don't want to bother debating the nasty bothersome other, who might occasional have a point, who might occassionally challenge an article of faith of ours in a persuasive way.

Like Nietzsche say, human beings are herd animals.

That's my cynical rant for today.

[dirtboy]

Saddam Hussein has been directly linked with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

That's a egregious misrepresentation of what was asked. The survey asked if folks believed that Saddam was linked with al Qaeda, not that Saddam was tied to 9-11. Two very different animals.

All that's missing from this drivel is imminence...

[dirtboy]

The three "egregious misperceptions" were (drum roll please): Saddam was behind 9/11

That's not what the survey asked, they asked if folks believed that Saddam had ties to al Qaeda, which has been documented, even though it is presented as a misperception. So they're lying about the lies that they're presenting as lies...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

4.) The California recall is too close to call!

[VOA]

Funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation

...enemies...domestic...

[Aegedius]

Bush and Rice and Rumsfled confirmed two weeks ago that Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11

Wrong. They said that there was insufficient evidence to prove the connection.

Try again.

[finnman69]

GoGophers
Since Sep 20, 2003

Interesting group of negative posts you have regarding conservatives and positive regarding Democrats...

[.cnI redruM]

This is just a rough estimate, but the listeners and supporters of NPR are about 50 times more likely than Fox fans to cite propaganda studies to belittle and insult their opponents.

[DustyMoment]

The problem with this "study" begins with - University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs and just gets worse.

From what I saw in the study, the perceptions were pretty much all dumbed down leftist perceptions, to wit: Saddam Hussein has been directly linked with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The only segment of the population that believes this claptrap are those who get their news from the lamestreams. I don't believe that Fox News ever tried to spin an association between Saddam and al-Qaida into Saddam directly planning 9/11. This was an assessment from the liberal press who made a link where there wasn't one.

The problem with this "study" is that it set out to prove that Fox News viewers were stupid and spun the results to get what they set out to prove. In the final analysis, it doesn't make the "study" credible.

[First_Salute]

Typical abuse of the requirements of a good study.

If the theory that generated the study, is that peoples' opinions are the result of what they gather from a single news source and their single news source is incorrect, and therefore their opinions are incorrect ... then the study should have examined enough of the class of news sources (for example, TV, in this case) to take a sample of the class (at least 4 networks, for example), and then initially examine both the correct info-bites and the incorrect info-bites.

A table of what each news network got correct and got incorrect, should have been worked up from that data.

Viewers would be sampled by exposing them to various news programs combinations from the table, and then cross-checked with other combinations from that table --- you would want to discover, here, the viewers' inclinations to "get it right" versus "get it wrong," both dependent upon what they watched and independent of what they watched.

Etc. Etc. The point is that the above study, as reported, is rubbish and a waste of the taxpayers' money.

Now, many will say, "But these foundations paid for these studies." Well, that too, is incorrect.

These foundations are leftist because it is part of the faustian bargain by which they are allowed by socialist officials and socialist programs to "go in peace" (that is, without being hectored by Jesse Jackson & Co.) Your tax dollars in support of the socialists, is what triggered the "dumpster diving" by the "study group" and will pick up much of the overhead of the "study" as well as almost all the "reverberations" through "academia," though indeed, the foundations paid for the incidentals and labor on an academic committee's "invoice."

Leftist academics will get paid, and pet projects of theirs are now funded, but the far more expensive socialist agenda is paid for by the taxpayer.

Thanks to a "study" that was designed to be used as "proof" by leftists though it is merely "suggestive" of one possibility given impractically limited choices.

[familyofman]

"Bush and Rice and Rumsfled confirmed two weeks ago that Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11
Wrong. They said that there was insufficient evidence to prove the connection. "

Okay, for the less-logically inclined here (me) - please explain how the 2 statements are so different as to make the first statement "wrong". I think they can both be correct & not mutually exclusive.

[First_Salute]

It's another "the seriousness of the charges" being more important than the facts.

[dirtboy]

If the theory that generated the study, is that peoples' opinions are the result of what they gather from a single news source and their single news source is incorrect, and therefore their opinions are incorrect ... then the study should have examined enough of the class of news sources (for example, TV, in this case) to take a sample of the class (at least 4 networks, for example), and then initially examine both the correct info-bites and the incorrect info-bites.

It would have been extremely interesting to see how many viewers believed that Bush claimed that the threat from Saddam was imminent. Considering that Bob Edwards said exactly that during an interview with Terry McAuliff, methinks a majority of NPR listeners probably believe that as well - and that is a bald-faced lie, as opposed to a matter of interpretation as to whether WMDs have actually been found in Iraq.

As it is, this article manages to misrepresent the misrepresentations of the study, as not too many people bother to run down the original and will accept the Sun's distortions as gospel.

[MeekOneGOP]

Yeah, really ! ...

[dirtboy]

Okay, for the less-logically inclined here (me) - please explain how the 2 statements are so different as to make the first statement "wrong". I think they can both be correct & not mutually exclusive.

Compare it to the difference between an acquittal and charges being dropped for lack of evidence.

[20somethingconservative]

Which brings up the point: Why are taxpayers still funding their socialist rubbish?

[Aegedius]

They don't know whether Saddam had anything to do with 9/11, and stated that. He may have had no connection, but it is false to state that Rice, Bush and Cheney have said there is no connection. They didn't say that.

They don't know. And I don't know. And you don't know.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Exactly. Non-profit my butt!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Our socialist propaganda mills / universities-press pulled this with election 2000 data - leaving out FACTS and perspective. It's purposefully dishonest, dishonorable - and a threat to our nation.

Anyone can prove the press misled the world from day one by downloading the CENTCOM humanitarian and security logs - successes across Iraq - ignored by the press in May, June, July, August, September.

The press knows CENTCOM is the primary news source.

Case closed.

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people ~ John Adams

The President and the troops are doing their jobs.

Our "info providers" and educators are misinforming the people, failing the free world.