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April 16, 2007
Pew: More Information is Making Us Stupid
There is a new and demoralizing Pew Research report out today. It shows, in short, that despite the huge increases in the amount of ambient information out there -- the Internet, 24-hour cable news, etc. -- Americans know as little as ever (or less) about national and international affairs.When asked to name the president of Russia, just 36% recalled Vladimir Putin. Only about three-in-ten (29%) could correctly identify former White House aide Scooter Libby; the survey was conducted during Libby's trial - but before his conviction - on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.Getting away from the depressing parts of the study, I found the following snippet interesting. There is little relationship between the news format and what people know:
Public knowledge of news events also varies widely. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) knew that as part of his revised Iraq strategy, President Bush planned to increase U.S. military forces in the country. But only one-in-four Americans (24%) are aware that both houses of Congress passed legislation to increase the minimum wage and 34% knew that Congress voted to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.
Well-informed audiences come from cable (Daily Show/Colbert Report, O'Reilly Factor), the internet (especially major newspaper websites), broadcast TV (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) and radio (NPR, Rush Limbaugh's program). The less informed audiences also frequent a mix of formats: broadcast television (network morning news shows, local news), cable (Fox News Channel), and the internet (online blogs where people discuss news events).
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To me, it vastly appears to be the case that the importance of domestic politics is higher in the American public's reckoning than that of international politics; Democrats are doing a good job of reinforcing and creating recall, where as Scooter Libby is classified away as 'bad memory' by the respondents (human brains are known to mask bad memories over pleasant ones).
If you take into account that the primary source of news for most people is 'local news channel or paper' (a vast percentage of which are full of 'cat run over by reversing car' variety of headings, an observation I make as a frequent visitor to your country, who is surprised to find the US and local focus of even broadsheets), why should these results be surprising? How many of those are discussing Shia-Sunni (or for that matter, Wahabi/ Bohra and other Muslim sub-sects)? How many are discussing the oil-politics in Russia (isn't the situation complex enough with the Middle East?)?
I must say however it is a pity we do not have a Pew doing such surveys here. A staggering number of TV hours and broadsheet column inches in the UK have been devoted in the last 3-4 days to 'The Royal Split' (the split of the romance between the heir apparent and his girlfriend from Uni) and 'Madonna visits Malawi amidst rumours (REALLY!!) of second adoption'. Pardon my French, but who exactly gives a monkey's? Well clearly many are giving a monkey's and much more's...
But when a particular item or issue does rise in news value the velocity at which it will fill the public consciousness continues to increase at record levels. The fluff does get pushed aside from time to time.
Interesting that the list of knowledge levels is topped by entries from the Comedy Channel. Yes, regular listeners can separate fact from joke, unlike the hostile monitors who will pounce on snippets out of context.
Article today in the Washington Post that relates. It is on "intellidating". Makes me wish I was born later so I could make that scene, although it might just be a NYC ultra-sophisticated kind of thing. If intellidating hits the Midwest, then I guess it might be a real trend. Still, it is neat.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/15/AR2007041501096.html?nav=hcmodule
Sorry about the link. Oops.
I'm a semi-news junky, but even I wonder who the hell really cares who the president of Russia is. Seriously, how is that information going to impact squat?
Joe, you need an intellidate real bad.
I haven't read the study, but the percentages you quote seem to be quite a bit higher than I would expect. Putin, Libby, etc., although important, are not the kind of issues that keep the working parents of three school-age kids up past 10:00pm scanning the day's headlines.