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flea dip
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Oct 18 2008, 01:38 AM
Post #1
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Rock Star From Mars
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Americans Flunk Simple 3-Question Political Survey- LiveScience.com livescience Staff
Oct 15, 2008
Some news audiences are more politically savvy than others, according to a new poll, with readers of The New Yorker and similar high-brow magazines being the most knowledgeable.
The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the political knowledge of 3,612 U.S. adults.
Participants were asked to name the controlling party of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. secretary of state and Great Britain's prime minister.
Overall, just 18 percent of participants answered all three questions correctly.
More than 50 percent of Americans knew that the Democrats have a majority in the House, while 42 percent could identify the secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice). Less than 30 percent could name the prime minister of Great Britain (Gordon Brown).
.... Here's a detailed breakdown of the percentage of individuals answering each of the three questions correctly from the different news audiences:
* The New Yorker/Atlantic: 71 percent (correctly identified Democrats as the majority in the House), 71 percent (correctly identified Condeleeza Rice), 59 percent (correctly identified Gordon Brown) * NPR: 73 percent, 72 percent, 57percent * Hannity & Colmes: 84 percent, 73 percent, 49 percent * Rush Limbaugh: 83 percent, 71 percent, 41 percent * Colbert Report: 73 percent, 65 percent, 49 percent * Daily Show: 65 percent, 48 percent, 36 percent * NewsHour: 66 percent, 52 percent, 47 percent * O'Reilly Factor: 70 percent, 60 percent, 41 percent * C-SPAN: 63 percent, 59 percent, 35 percent * Letterman/Leno: 51 percent, 42 percent, 31 percent * CNN: 59 percent, 48 percent, 29 percent * National Enquirer: 44 percent, 32 percent, 22 percent
Education factor
In general, well-educated news audiences scored high on political knowledge. For instance, 54 percent of the regular readers of publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine are college graduates, as are 54 percent of regular NPR listeners.
However, several news audiences with relatively low proportions of college graduates also scored well on the news quiz.
Just 31 percent of regular "Hannity & Colmes" viewers are college graduates.
Even still, 42 percent Hannity viewers got perfect scores on the political knowledge quiz, compared with 44 percent of NPR listeners.
Nearly 40 percent of the regular audience of the news parody "The Colbert Report" are college graduates, compared with 30 percent of "The Daily Show" viewers.
Both shows have younger audiences than other TV news sources, with less than a quarter of Colbert and Daily Show viewers over the age of 50, compared with more than half of "Hardball" and "Hannity & Colmes" viewers being 50 and older.
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Mihoshi Marie
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Oct 18 2008, 11:10 PM
Post #2
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I didn't take this survey, but I did answer those questions before scrolling down, and got all of them correct.
The media likes to push the stereotype that Americans are hopelessly stupid and/or ignorant.
On second thought, it's true that a lot of people here ARE ignorant, but the media loves to point that out, and then gush over how informed and intelligent Europeans are.
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flea dip
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Oct 18 2008, 11:13 PM
Post #3
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Rock Star From Mars
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- Mihoshi Marie
- Oct 18 2008, 11:10 PM
I didn't take this survey, but I did answer those questions before scrolling down, and got all of them correct.
The media likes to push the stereotype that Americans are hopelessly stupid and/or ignorant.
On second thought, it's true that a lot of people here ARE ignorant, but the media loves to point that out, and then gush over how informed and intelligent Europeans are.
"...and then gush over how informed and intelligent Europeans are."
And don't forget how nuanced they are.
I also thought it was interesting to see how typical viewers of each show (Hannity and Colmes, Rush Limbaugh, etc) scored.
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