A pew research quiz was done before the Mass. special election to find what people know about the U.S.. You can take the quiz at the pew research center the national average was 6 correct answers I got all twelve right. The thing that struck my interest was in reading about the quiz the results showed that Republicans were better informed than Democrats. The margin was slim and other factors go into the results age and gender, older and male tend to be better informed.
Makes me wonder if the knowledge we process has a bigger impact on the policies we support than labels. The other premise would have you believe that Reps. care more and thus become better informed.
I don't think either party cares more than the other. I do think this lays more credibility to the complaints of media bias. Media is one of the keys to an informed electorate if people are only fifty percent informed on average this points to a short coming.
Then again maybe the people just don't care to be informed.
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I'm so proud! I got 11 out of 12 right: "Here's Your Score: You correctly answered 11 out of the 12 possible questions, which means you did better on the quiz than 82% of the general public." I missed the question about the Dow. I wish the results were available in embeddable form. I voted Democrat in the last election, btw.
ReplyDeleteDivers and Sundry very good, it's good to know some Dem's are paying attention:)
ReplyDeleteI got a twelve. And I'm a screaming leftist. Good thing, because I was going to be very, very irritated if I didn't get a twelve. I'll admit though that on the one about the Dow I took an educated guess.
ReplyDeleteA while back, during the Bush years, viewers of Fox News were polled along with viewers of the John Stewart's Daily Show. The Daily Show viewers had more accurate information on average than the Fox News viewers. Fox News is a conservative news show. The Daily Show is a liberal comedy show.
I think it can be tempting to make too much of these studies and surveys and whatnot. They shouldn't be disregarded. It's sad that the national average is 6 out of 12. But as far as an interpretation that says liberals or conservatives are more knowledgable and such, I think that's stretching it.
Jockeystreet I agree it's sad that only 6 of 12 was the average. That's why I had to take the test to see for myself. After I took it I thought it was even sadder,pretty easy test.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to give that or a similar test as a means to determine who can vote. People who can't get at least half right have no business helping to determine policy.
I missed the Dow question. I guess that I should pay more attention to financial news.
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