Originally Posted By friendofdd This is taken from a fascinating report done last year. I hope it will whet your appetite enough to go to the link and peruse the article. It will show what your "group" knows. >>>Internet news sources, National Public Radio, news magazines, and Rush Limbaugh's radio show have the best educated audiences, with each of these having at least 36% of their regular readers and listeners having graduated from college. The internet sources along with the comedy news shows attract younger-than-average audiences, though many older Americans regularly get news from these sources as well. The audience for the morning network news shows is disproportionately female (61%), while Limbaugh's audience is heavily male (65%). A greater than average number of men are found in the audiences for the major newspaper websites (59%), for comedy news, The O'Reilly Factor, news magazines (54% each), and the TV news websites (53% male). Conservatives and Republicans are especially attracted to Limbaugh, while more Democrats are found among the audiences for the NewsHour, the comedy news shows, news magazines, and the websites of major newspapers.<<< <a href="http://people-press.org/report/319/public-knowledge-of-current-affairs-little-changed-by-news-and-information-revolutions" target="_blank">http://people-press.org/report...olutions</a>
Originally Posted By Mr X ***and Rush Limbaugh's radio show have the best educated audiences*** Proof positive that education does not equate to intelligence.
Originally Posted By dshyates I don't find it odd that the Daily Show viewers are the most knowledgable of current events, given that if you don't know current events, you won't get any of the jokes. The show is made for news junkies. I am also not surprised that O'Rielly's and Rush's audience are knowlegable since they are both current event shows.
Originally Posted By friendofdd >>>Proof positive that education does not equate to intelligence. <<< Nor does intelligence equate to wisdom. =o]
Originally Posted By Mr X True. I debated whether to say "intelligence" (since you need some modicum of intelligence to graduate from College, in general), or "wisdom", or even "street smarts"... But anyway, maybe "brains" would fit best. Education does not equal brains, considering the number of college graduates who are fans of Rush. That's better.
Originally Posted By friendofdd Of course all that may be meaningless since the study is about political/current events knowledge and Rush listeners seem to know as much info as any other knowledgable groups.
Originally Posted By dshyates What I would like to see is a comparison between the viewers of any of the shows mentioned and viewers of American Idol.
Originally Posted By Mrs ElderP I'm an NPR listener, and I am ashamed to say that at this very second I could not, off the top of my head name all 7 juctices of the supreme court. That's one that I always think I *should* know but I don't!! I look it up occasionally, but then I forget them again. :-(
Originally Posted By jdub I know they have to buy their own robes--I learned that when Justice Stephen Breyer was a guest on the NPR news quiz, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!"
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I'm an NPR listener, and I am ashamed to say that at this very second I could not, off the top of my head name all 7 juctices of the supreme court.*** There are 9.
Originally Posted By Mrs ElderP see... and I consider myself well informed!! I have a BA in history, I can remember that FDR tried to pack the court and I can't even remember how many there are now!!!
Originally Posted By Mr X lol. Well, I don't know much about the history (I know that 9 is not an "official" number, and it is possible for there to be more or less...), but I do know it's 9 right now (so many decisions these days are 5-4).
Originally Posted By Mr X DD is right on that one. Rush sure does know the exact number of individuals in any particular political body or institution. Otherwise, how could he possibly label them all properly?
Originally Posted By SuperDry Thanks friendofdd for pointing us to this article. Following up on this thread has been on my "to do list" since you posted it, and I'm just now getting around to doing so. The article turned out to be different than what I expected, for a couple of reasons: the article was measuring things much more macro than I had expected (see below), and you pulled somewhat of a Link-O-Matic on us by very selectively choosing which quote you used. Also from the article: <<< The fact that a particular news source's audience is very knowledgeable does not mean that people learned all that they know from that source. As noted earlier, some news sources draw especially well-educated audiences who are keenly interested in politics. Because of their education and life experiences, these individuals have more background information and may be better able to retain what they see in the news, regardless of where they see it. >>> This dovetails into what I wanted to talk about in this thread. Let me speak about one of my favorite topics: the noise machine. To review, I'm speaking of the right-wing, agenda-driven media: Drudge Report, Fox News, and the various talking heads: Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, et al. The article mentioned how many people use a variety of news sources to get their information. There's a certain set of people for whom the "variety" consists entirely of noise machine sources: they listen to their AM radios to and from work, read Drudge Report at work during the day, and watch O'Reilly once they get home. I've noticed a few common characteristics of such people. As news hounds or people otherwise interested in current events, they do tend to be more aware of the micro items in the news than the average Joe. This is what I expected from the linked article, before I read it. And by "micro items" I don't mean items of little significance, but rather things happening that day, week, or month, rather than more macro items like who the President of Russia is (the linked article above seems to deal mostly with knowledge of macro items). On the face of it, this would seem to be a good thing: certainly, the more knowledge about current events, the better. But I've noticed that if a certain item isn't covered by the noise machine, these people have no knowledge of it. And, there certainly are some current events that the noise machine chooses not to cover because they don't fit into the agenda. Another thing I've noticed is that these people tend to have very little general background knowledge. For example, many such people are very concerned about terrorism, plots against airliners, and so forth. Yet, I've found that almost universally, they're unable to identify the major plot against US airliners that originated in the Pacific in the early 90's. Not only can they not identify which country the plot was hatched from, they can't identify what the plot itself involved, or what happened to the people behind it. My experience is that such people have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about when I bring up the subject. And this is from people that would self-identify as being very concerned about terrorism, national security, and aviation safety, and tend to get set off and spooked by frightening possibilities. Why would such people not know about this important and relevant piece of fairly recent history? Well, the noise machine doesn't talk about it, that's why (not that there's any conspiracy for them not doing so, but as something that happened some 15 years ago, it's simply something that doesn't come up). My point is that although these people might self-identify as people that are very much into keeping up with things, prior to the noise machine turning into a 24/7 medium, they were NOT the types of people that paid attention to current events. That is, not the type who would have read the newspaper, watched a national news broadcast, read books on current events, etc. So, their only basis for making judgments is what the noise machine decides to tell them today. So, the basis of accumulated knowledge over time is lacking, and that's a very important backdrop for anyone that's trying to make sense of what's happening today. Sometimes, I'll ask such people what books they've read recently. Invariably, the answer is "none." I've actually had one person tell me that the reason they don't read books is that they don't have time. This particular person spends quite literally hours every day, day in and day out, listening to the noise machine: watching Fox News at home, listening to Rush in his office while at the same time reading Drudge Report, and getting satellite radio piped into his car so that he can listen to Hannity et all when on the road. And yet, he never reads books, and when asked why, says "I simply don't have time - there's so much going on!" with the meaning that he would have no way to watch Fox News and listen to his radio as much as he does if he took the time to read a book. The irony of someone saying that he doesn't read books because he wants to spend his time staying informed and educated is completely lost on him, and I think this is by no means an isolated situation.
Originally Posted By ecdc Superb post, superdry. I think this is why those tapped into the right-wing noise machine, despite hearing more "news" than the average person, is often so woefully ignorant of key facts. To offer another example, look at the Iraq War. These are people who know all about the progress of the surge, the daily ins and outs of the war, and the steps the Bush Administration is taking. However, they know nothing about the history of Iraq, when it was formed as a country, the Sunni/Shi'ite divisions, Saddam's previous history with the United States, etc., etc. This leads to the noise listeners preaching about freedom, democracy, victory, and other vagueries, but totally unaware of how difficult those things will be to sustain in Iraq, or unaware of even why the insurgency developed and who's driving it. It's all just "terrorists" which equals Al Qaeda in their brains, which equals the link to 9/11. Again, fantastic post, superdry. It ought to be required reading.
Originally Posted By friendofdd >>>and you pulled somewhat of a Link-O-Matic on us by very selectively choosing which quote you used.<<< Excellent post, SuperDry. I think perhaps "the noise machine" has it's counterparts on the left as well, especially on cable news. Their radio programs are not nearly as popular though. It may be because those on the left do not need it or simply that they don't know how to be entertaining as well as political. With regard to the above quote from your post. I do not intend to mislead in any way, but, as a conservative independent, I find it difficult to get folk to read the posts I make of articles which deserve a full reading. So I try to find a hook to pull people in.
Originally Posted By wonderingalice I'm an online local newspaper/CNN girl with a dose of Mr. Alice's Fox News and talk radio tossed in. I watched the DNC on CSPAN so I'd actually get to see it without a bunch of loud mouths telling me what *I* saw from *their* point of view. I'll do the same with the RNC. Yeah, Mr. Alice and I are a weird mix... But his mom is an Obama Mama, so I get to cast the deciding Nevada vote in our family. Heh heh heh...
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< With regard to the above quote from your post. I do not intend to mislead in any way, but, as a conservative independent, I find it difficult to get folk to read the posts I make of articles which deserve a full reading. So I try to find a hook to pull people in. >>> Well, you accomplished that with me!
