Several months back, I reported a study that showed the those whose only source of news is FoxNews are less well informed than those who don't watch any news source at all.
The subjects of the study were all residents of New Jersey. Now Fairleigh-Dickenson University has repeated that limited study with a nationwide sample -- with similar results.
Those who listen only to NPR have the highest scores on questions about domestic news. Those who listen only to FoxNews have the lowest -- and the are lower than those who watch/listen to no news at all.
Of course, this arouses my statistics-indignation. Is this cause or effect? That is, do they know less because they get wrong information from FoxNews? Or do people who watch FoxNews tend to be dumber than people who watch NPR?
My guess: both contribute. The two media outlets appeal to such different types -- and, without evidence to prove it, I'm reasonably confident that you would find NPR audiences generally a good bit smarter -- or at least caring more about evidence, logic, etc -- than FoxNews audiences. But, if you're constantly fed misinformation and biased views that often ignore the facts, then it's going to show up in how you score on a test about the news. So it's probably some of both: skewed audiences plus misinformation.
Ralph
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