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InvisibleinfidelGOD
illusion

Registered: 04/18/02
Posts: 3,040
Loc: there
Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: Phred]
    #2041342 - 10/25/03 12:56 AM (20 years, 5 months ago)

How much more plainly can the pollsters emphasize they are not asking for a rigorous examination of personal certainties? Hell, they are not even coming close to asking for a judgment on truth or falsehood -- it's almost the same instructions a psychiatrist gives you at the beginning of one of those word-association psychological tests where he says, "I'm gonna say a word and I want you to answer me with another word -- the first one that pops into your head.".

that is complete BS, this poll was nothing like a word association test. it specifically asks for peoples impressions so they can compare them to reality and determine how misinformed they are. so what if they ask for impressions? how does that invalidate the findings? if you have the "impression" that there WMD have been found in Iraq, aren't you holding the wrong impression or perception or whatever you want to call it? the results are still useful in finding peoples misperceptions. the phrasing of the question and the instructions don't really change anything. this is normally how polls are done.

Clearly this questionnaire was not designed to ascertain the level of factual knowledge the respondents held on various aspects of the Iraq invasion

no it was clearly designed to find out peoples impressions, perceptions and misperceptions. I thought this was obvious.

So the entire PBS/NPR crowd combined is 40 people (do the math yourself if you don't trust me), and falls within the range of statistical "noise" in any event.

oh my, I see we haven't studied our statistics, (not so much statistics, this is actually simple logic). here's how it works. let's say that 10% of a group of a 1000 people is randomly sampled in a poll. and in that sample group of 100 people, 5 watch X and 95 watch Z. the margin of error is the same for both regardless of their size if they both represent the same percentage of the whole.

Let me try this again -- a sample size of 40 people cannot give you anywhere close to the same degree of accuracy as a sample size of 1362 people

a sample size of 40 people is just as accurate as a sample size of 800 if both represent the same precentages of the whole, for example, if the 40 represented a group of 4000 and the 800 represented a group of 80000.

so there goes that theory...

I'm afraid the results still stand. it just so happens that there is a smaller sample of NPR/PBS viewers because there are less of them. if there were equal numbers of FOX news viewers and NPR/PBS viewers, and they used different sized samples, you might have a point. but using a small sample to represent a small group is natural. I know you're going to keep trying to rip apart this poll, but this is pretty much how polls are done. there's nothing logically wrong with the methodology, and the phrasing of the questions tells you exactly what kind of perceptions or "impressions" people have, which is exactly what the poll is trying to find out.

And I don't need the Iraq polls to confirm what I already know -- that the Iraqis are in favor. I used logic and common sense as well as reports from liberated Iraqis. You can't seriously believe the majority of Iraqis opposed being set free.

ummm... yeah. I'm sure logic told you that Iraqis wanted freedom, but I thought we were talking about Iraqis wanting an American invasion? you seemed to have confused the two.

To date, the largest number of countries where we can actually check "opposed" and "in favor" is the Gallup poll included in one of EchoVortex's links which totalled something like 62 countries -- roughly a third of the total.

there are more poll results in page 8 of the PIPA report, but once again let me say that I don't need polls to tell me that the world was opposed. this is known to everyone. even you agree that the world was opposed. EVERYONE agrees on this. there is no debate. and it doesn't matter if it's known as a fact to you since the only thing that would convince you is poll results from 190 countries and I don't think we'll be getting that any time soon.

don't call it a fact if you don't want to, just call it common knowledge.

But it isn't common knowledge. That's my entire point. I know of nowhere on the Net where one can find such information -- nowhere


It is common knowledge that the world was opposed to the war. just because you can't find this information on the net doesn't mean it's not true. and I feel that you are being rather dishonest with this line of reasoning because in the next sentence you say:

In my opinion, the majority of the world probably did oppose the invasion

so you agree that the world was opposed to the war? doesn't everyone agree on this? never mind if it can be known as a verifiable fact. can we at least say that there is a consensus here that the world was opposed to the war? this is a question that has an answer whether or not you want to accept it as fact. anyone who thinks that "The majority of people in the world favored the US having gone to war" is simply misinformed.

and if you believe that there was worldwide support for the war, "misinformed" is truly the right word for you here.

But I don't believe that. I have already told you the reverse. The point is that I don't know that, and neither do you.


yes I know you don't believe that. that's why I said if you believe... and I was actually referring to the FOX news viewers who did believe it.

If they differ, then I am required to provide proof -- i.e. the validity of the polls held in Iraq. You can't have it both ways.

well if you're going to say that polls out of Iraq prove that the majority of Iraqis supported the invasion, then you ARE required to provide proof because you only have the polls to go by (polls which are flawed as I'll explain later). but I never said that polls from around the world prove that the world was opposed to the war. yes these polls do exist and they do suggest strongly that the world was opposed to the war, but I already told you that I don't rely on polls to know this so how am I having things both ways? you keep saying this but you haven't really thought it through. you have a habit of applying the same inflexible standards to different sitiuations. IF I had said that polls prove that the world was opposed, and that was my only piece of evidence, THEN I would be required to provide proof. but I gave other reasons besides polls. but if it's polls you're after, see page 8 of the PIPA report. it doesn't have results from all 190 countries as you're demanding. but it's more than enough to reasonably conclude that the world was opposed to the war. hey at least I have provided polls, even though I didn't really need them to make my case. I have yet to see a single poll from you proving that the majority of Iraqis supported the invasion.

First of all, the PBS/NPR crowd is statistically insignificant at a mere 41 people, so all of the conclusions drawn about them are meaningless no matter what form the questions took

incorrect. see above

Secondly, I didn't say the FOX crowd would outperform the PBS/NPR crowd (or the print media readers) on those three questions, but on the e-mailer's questions.

any proof of this?

I don't know if that ratio is a constant -- I suspect that as the groups get ever smaller, the ratio gets larger. I do know, however, that the accuracy swing on a group of a mere 40 people is sufficiently large as to render the results suspect. If this were not the case, pollsters wouldn't spend the money to poll groups as large as they do -- they'd poll several dozen people rather than a thousand.

you seem to be confused here. 40 people is not total the sample size. see above. you seem to think that the only valid comparisons in polls are between groups of identical size where (according to your misperception of the term), the "margin of error" would be the same. it doesn't work that way.

You overlook the fact that the error rate in a group of 240 respondents (the FOX group) is substantially less than the error rate in a group of 40 respondents (PBS). So when a FOX result of 32% with an error rate of ?5% (for example) is compared to a PBS answer of 16% with an error rate of ? 11%, statistically speaking the results are identical.

again. total BS.
you sure are going out of your way to discredit the findings of this poll. try another angle. maybe you'll get it if you keep trying.

I follow virtually nothing but print (internet) media, and I follow current affairs a lot more closely than the average television watcher does. I know things about current events you don't -- not because I am any more intelligent than you, but simply because due to my passion for politics and the amount of spare time I have. I spend hours each day combing through multiple sources.

hey, that's great man. it's good that you're informed, but we're not talking about your misperceptions here (if you have any), we're talking about the misperceptions of FOX news viewers. shouldn't you at least be familiar with TV news if we're going to discuss the impressions that people get from watching it?

actually, I don't take any poll as fact.

Except, apparently, the PIPA poll which purports to prove that watching FOX News makes you more misinformed than if you didn't. Can we say "double standard"?


I don't take that as fact either. it just shows a strong correlation between watching FOX news and holding certain incorrect impressions. that's all. I never claimed there was any causality there. in fact, I recall saying that causality was unprovable either way. whatever man, if you want to put words in my mouth and scream "double standard" go right ahead. if that's all you have left.

Apart from the fact that the PIPA poll was not asking people about facts, or even about opinions for that matter, but about their impressions, to say that most of his questions can't be answered factually is incorrect

ah more word games from you... here's the deal: if your "impressions" don't match the facts, then your impressions are wrong. the word "perception" can be subtituted for "impression" here so that answering these questions wrong would mean you have a "misperception". simple isn't it? if it is your impression or preception or opinion or whatever that WMD have been found in Iraq, guess what? you're WRONG! the FACTS don't match your IMPRESSION. there is nothing wrong with the way those questions are phrased. that is generally how it is done in polls. it asks for peoples impressions to see how closely they match reality - to see how misinformed they are.

For the sake of argument, let's pretend for the next few minutes your take on the toppling statue question is correct. What about the other three?

"Did President Bush claim before the war that the threat to the US from Iraq's WMD was imminent?"

No, Bush claimed no such thing. That is not opinion, that is fact. You can weasel on for pages and pages about the "mood of the media" or the "interpretation" or "people's impressions", but that doesn't alter the fact that he never claimed it.


this is an entirely subjective question. it is fact that Bush never specifically called Iraq an imminent threat. that much is not in dispute, but it is your opinion that such a claim was never made to the American people - an opinion based on one line in the State of the Union address, which I presume, you read on the internet, while ignoring others things that were said that suggested Iraq was an imminent threat. you have to look beyond your over-reliance on the print media here because when such claims are made, the preferred method of the US goverment is TV. I bet you didn't see the numerous press conferences where president Bush raised the spectre of a mushroom cloud over an American city and said that Iraq was six months away from getting a nuke, or warned us about hundreds of tons of biological and chemical weapons. there was a consistent message from the Bush administration, but if you haven't seen a TV in the last few months, you simply would not be aware of this.

people could decide for themselves if president Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent threat. one line in the State of the Union adress certainly does not settle it, there is a lot more to it which you are not aware of. people will have different opinions on this as they should.

and btw, you claimed that the PBS/NPR audience would do worse (or to put it more accurately, they would hold the "wrong opinion") on this question than FOX news viewers. how did you come to this conclusion? do you have any evidence to back it up? let's not forget that these four questions are hypothetical. we only have the emailer's assumption that the PBS viewer would do worse than the FOX news viewer.

"Do a majority of Iraqis support the US invasion?"

Yes. Not only does every available poll confirm this, so does logic and common sense.


please show me a poll that proves that a majority of Iraqis supported the US invasion. so far all you have are polls from urban Baghdad (which I have yet to see). I imagine you have polls from all of Iraq? don't you? else how are we to know how the majority of Iraqis feel? you see why I don't trust these polls from a warzone? I could have gone to Najaf or Tikrit and come back with results that "prove" the opposite - that the majority of Iraqis did not support the invasion. the country is so divided right now and in such chaos that polls from certain parts of Baghdad can't possibly show you how the majority of Iraqis feel. so I maintain that at this point, it can't be known if the majority of Iraqis supported the invasion. we certainly don't have any polls actually proving this so I don't see how there can be a factual answer to this question.

and think about the question for a minute:
Do a majority of Iraqis support the US invasion?"

the only answer can come from these shoddy polls out of Iraq, and this question is to be asked in a hypothetical poll?... think about that. in a poll designed to determine how misinformed people are, you are asking a question that people would only know if they happened to have seen another poll. is that a fair question to ask to determine misperceptions about key facts in the war? looks like the email author didn't really think this one through.

and once again I must ask what lead you to be believe that the PBS/NPR audience would do any "worse" than FOX news viewers on this question. you're busy trying to question the validity of the PIPA results, but you're leaving some questions in your own assertions unanswered.

"Did the US sell significant amounts of arms to Saddam Hussein?"

No. By any measure you care to name, the amount of arms sold to Hussein by the US was not a significant amount. To call an anthrax culture "significant amounts of arms" is ludicrous.


this question is also subjective. what exactly does he mean by "significant amounts of arms"? could it be that people might interpret this to include the anthrax, since a small amount of anthrax can have a significant potential to kill as Colin Powell argued at the UN not long ago? you don't get to decide what constitutes a "significant amount". people can decide this one for themselves and I'm sure you'll get a range of opinions on this. some would no doubt have the facts wrong as well, perhaps thinking that the US sold lots of conventional arms to Iraq. but once again, you have absolutely no evidence that the PBS/NPR audience would have any more factual misperceptions than FOX news viewers on this question. FOX news viewers might be just as misinformed here for all we know.

and I think you're being rather hypocritical here. a while ago in another thread you were arguing that anthrax cultures = WMD. now you're saying that it's not that big a deal. speaking of having things both ways...

The e-mailer's questions are not "fundamentally different" at all. They are -- in the context of misperception or false impression or whatever you want to call it -- fundamentally identical. They all deal with widely-reported and often-discussed aspects of the same meta-topic -- reasons to invade (or not invade) Iraq.

yes they are fundamentally different. you're just not getting it and you're letting your prejudice show with each post. the difference is that the emailer's questions are subjective. questions like "was the toppling of the statue staged?" or "did Bush claim Iraq was an imminent threat?" have people on BOTH sides of the debate with different opinions, different interpretations. in fact, those questions HAVE to have subjective answers, unless you insist that there can only be one "correct" interpretation of the events. these questions are not dealing with facts. you have already seen a variety of opinions on this thread about the statue scene and people's different take on it. would you say that someone whose interpretation doesn't match yours is misinformed? no. they would simply be holding a different opinion.

on the other hand, the questions in the original poll, despite how they are phrased, deal with objective content like "have WMD been found" or "is there a close working relationship" where there IS an answer that everyone can agree on. only those on the fringe (and those who are misinformed) would still believe that Iraq had a close relationship with al qaida or believe that WMD have been found. these questions clearly are not asking for opinions or interpretations, they're asking for impressions that either do or do not fit the facts.

this is the critical logical error that the author of the email makes. when he says "imagine an opposite kind of poll" and asks those questions, he assumes that his questions have the same kind of objective answers as in the original poll, then all he does is ask vague, subjective questions which will draw out opinions. and he points to people holding the "incorrect" opinions as proof that they are as "misinformed" as FOX news viewers. ridiculous logic isn't it?

think about it - and this next part is very important - if you're going to make an "opposite kind of poll", you have to ask questions whose answers can be known with the same level of certainty as the answers in the original poll. these questions can't be colored with any subjective interpretations. they have to deal with facts just like in the original otherwise you can't draw any meaningful conclusions from this new poll. this "opposite poll" must have opposite but equivalent questions. it's just simple logic.

if you had applied the same amount of critical thinking to the email as you did to the PIPA study, you would have immediately seen the logical flaw. but I imagine you did what a lot of FOX news viewers do - you read the email, you agreed with it so you neglected to examine it further. you neglected to think critically about it because it confirmed your preconceptions. if something disagrees with your preconceptions, like Myerson's article, you go all out to try to look for any logical flaws (without much success). I wish you would be consistent in your application of logic and skepticism.

No. I won't bother repeating this all over again, since you seem honestly incapable of grasping the definition of "staged" provided by your own dictionary. Re-read what I wrote, compare what I said to what the dictionary says about "stage", and if you still disagree with me, so be it.

once again I have to remind you that you don't get to decide who has the "correct" opinion on this. here's the definition: stage - to produce or cause to happen for public view or public effect. are you aware of the huge role that PR plays in our government? are you aware that things are often done "for the cameras"? even that famous image of the soldiers planting the flag at Iwo Jima was staged - it was done for the cameras - for public effect, yes even though it "really happened", it was still staged. and I'm not saying that it's bad what they did. it certainly had the intended symbolic effect. I'm only saying that the whole scene was primarily done for the cameras - for public effect. get it? so you could say "it happened - it wasn't staged" all you want. but that will only be your own stubborn opinion. others will see things differently than you do. and besides, do you know for a fact that the toppling was ordered by the military with absolutely no consideration for public effect? can we safely assume that the military does have these considerations? maybe they ordered the toppling specifically for the cameras of the "embedded" reporters. it isn't completely beyond the realm of possibility that the whole scene was staged - put on for the cameras. in fact, I think this is highly likely.

you seem absolutely convinced that it wasn't staged but your words might have more weight here if you actually saw any live news coverage of the event instead of reading about it on the internet from some guy that saw it. and I still don't get why you believe that the PBS/NPR audience would do "worse" on this question than the FOX news viewer. I know several independently thinking conservatives who believe that the scene was staged. maybe it has nothing to do with idealogy, just your susceptibility to propoganda.

There you go again with the "wiggle room" bit. The e-mailer's question did not ask: "Did the Bush administration try to portray Iraq as an imminent threat?" The e-mailer's question was much more narrowly worded, and asked for a judgment of fact, not of opinion -- "Did Bush (not the Bush administration) claim (not try to portray) before the war that the threat to the US was imminent?" Yet you claim that the respondents may properly ignore the question being asked and instead answer one which was not asked.

But you adamantly refuse to allow the respondents the same latitude when it comes to the "close working relationship" question. Oh, no! -- there the respondents must stick rigidly and scrupulously to the precise wording of the question when giving their impressions. You claim this is not applying a double standard. Perhaps some of the readers of this thread see otherwise.


I'm not asking people to answer a question that was not asked. the question is "Did President Bush claim before the war that the threat to the US from Iraq's WMD was imminent?". there are people who believe that this is precisely what Bush did. don't you get it? this question is asking for people's opinions of whether or not Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent threat. there is no "fact" here. no right answer, only opinions. like I said earlier, it is fact that Bush never actually called Iraq an imminent threat. but the question of whether or not Bush made the claim is a far different question and one that has a subjective answer. if I say that "it is my opinion that Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent threat", that doesn't mean I'm misinformed, it means the opposite - it means I've thought about this a great deal and I have formed my opinion, an opinion based on things I've seen on TV, read in the papers and the internet, it will be based on everything that Bush had said leading up to the war, not based on just one line in the State of the Union address.

this question cannot possibly have an objective answer but the question about the "close working relationship" has a real, non-subjective answer based on factual evidence (or lack thereof). just look at the content of the question itself, there is very little room for interpretation. and everyone is in agreement on this, a few weeks ago Bush cabinet members were going on the Sunday news programs like Meet the Press to disavow any connection between Iraq an al qaida. of course, you wouldn't be aware of this either.. but anyway, there is agreement here, righties, liberals and everyone in between agree that there was no close working relationship. this is a fact for all intents and purposes. even you agree that there was no close relationship. if there was any kind of debate about this question. if many people were claiming that there was a close working relationship and they had any kind of substantial evidence, I might agree that this question can be open to different opinions, but there is no such debate. this question has a widely accepted correct answer. I don't see how anyone can interpret the question to conclude that there was a close working relationship unless they are simply misinformed. these questions ARE fundamentally different. the email author made a logically flawed assumption and now you are doing the same.

For convenience, I will combine the above two comments and address them together below --

Sigh. You still don't get it. I am not commenting on the bias of the media here. I am commenting on the inappropriate conclusions drawn by Myerson. I don't need to know anything at all about FOX News or PBS in order to point out the flaws in the poll.....


you completely missed my point. my point wasn't that you can't try to point our flaws or anything like that. my point was that if you didn't have a TV in the last 16 years, how could you possibly know the answers to questions like "was the toppling of the statue staged" or "did Bush claim Iraq was an imminent threat". of course, you could have your opinions on these things but they would be based on incomplete information. I could understand why you would believe that Bush never claimed Iraq was an imminent threat. it's because you weren't exposed to the primary tool that the goverment would use to make such a claim. and reading "endless critiques" about the statue scene on the internet wouldn't exactly give you a good grasp of what was shown on TV either, so you wouldn't really be able to speak with any authority on whether it was "staged" or not. all you could say is "it happened, so it's not staged" because THAT much you know.

Clearly the PIPA folks themselves are operating under a misconception, and it has colored their interpretation of the data

actually the question was "was there a close working relationship?" not some relationship, or any relationship. and people still got this one wrong. I don't see how the fact that PIPA had the misconception that there was no connection invalidates those findings. those people who had the impression that there was a close working relationship are wrong regardless of what PIPA believes.

does that invalidate the findings for you?

Even more so. I take it you haven't bothered to read the full report yet. If you had, you would be understanding this a whole lot better.


I obviously did read the report and yes there are other questions that aren't used. so what? that's how polls work dude, they ask many questions. this doesn't invalidate the findings.

I normally don't ask for links but maybe first you should provide me with links proving that "the PBS/NPR crowd is as misinformed".

Until PIPA or some other group does a followup poll which consists of more than 40 PBS/NPR respondents, obviously I cannot.


so you have no evidence of this, obviously. and you are not familiar with FOX news or it's viewers but you still contend that "the PBS/NPR crowd is as misinformed"? why do you believe this? do you have any logical basis for this belief?

Incorrect. The actual findings of the poll show the reverse -- the more likely you are to hold a mistaken impression, the higher the chances are that you will watch FOX News.

huh? then how do you explain the fact that those who paid closer attention to FOX news were the ones who were most misinformed? are you going to reverse causality on this one too and say that those who are most misinformed are the ones who are more likely to pay more attention to FOX news or some BS like that? care to actually provide any proof or reasoning behind your assertions?

the original poll proves that FOX news viewers are misinformed, at least on those questions.

Which means exactly doodly squat. I could put together a set of three questions where FOX viewers would do far better. As a matter of fact, the PIPA researchers already did, they just chose not to emphasize the fact.


can you please provide some proof of this. what are the three questions in the PIPA poll where FOX news viewers did far better than NPR/PBS viewers. I'll be waiting.

You are missing the key point here -- the folks that answered those questions "wrongly" aren't even "misinformed"

umm.. yes they are. if they answered wrongly and said that it is their "impression" that we had found WMD in Iraq, they are misinformed.

Even the PIPA guys admit this. From their report -- "However, it should be noted that when respondents say that something is likely -- especially those who just say that it is somewhat likely -- it does not mean they have come to the conclusion that it is the case." How much plainer can you state it than that?

you took this line compeletely out of context. the questions under discussion don't ask if it is "likely" or "somewhat likely" that WMD have been found in Iraq. it simply asks for peoples impressions, and those impressions either fit the facts or don't fit the facts. I don't recall seeing any of those three questions asking for peoples impressions on what is the probability that WMD have been found or the probability that there was a close working relationship.

I think everyone should read the PIPA report for themselves. there is some great info in there and the results speak for themselves. I looked at it critically and I have yet to see any specific flaws in the polling methodology. if you don't agree with the results of the poll, I imagine you would be looking hard for it though, maybe a little too hard.

nor do I see any distortions in the way Myerson reported it. he does not say that watching FOX news causes people to be misinformed, he just says that FOX news viewers are more misinformed. this particular finding is not debatable. you didn't even dispute this part. in fact, your "answer" to this poll was an email which attempts to ask an "opposite kind of poll" to the PBS/NPR audience and assumes that they would answer the questions "wrong", thereby proving that they are "misinformed" as FOX news viewers. can you provide us with your reasoning for believing that the PBS/NPR audience would indeed do worse on such a poll? or is it just more speculation based on your preconceptions? need I remind you again that the burden of proof is on you for this assertion?

and of course you try to ignore this gross logical error in the email (hey as long as it proves your point right?), while trying to pick apart the PIPA poll and it's methodology with your incomplete understanding of margin of error and your contention that since the poll asks for impressions, these people are not really misinformed (yeah they just have the wrong impressions! duh), while simultaneously arguing that there are hard, factual answers to subjective questions like "was the toppling of the statue staged?" or "did Bush claim Iraq was an imminent threat?". absolutely ridiculous man. once again, another one of your brilliantly written posts but once again, showing a distinct lack of logic.


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OfflineEchoVortex
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Registered: 02/06/02
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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: Phred]
    #2041625 - 10/25/03 03:23 AM (20 years, 5 months ago)

Now you are trying to switch it over to which political candidate the news watcher is more likely to vote for. Earlier you were insisting this has to do purely with errors in factual knowledge -- that it didn't matter which facts were involved. Which is it?

Of course I'm talking about facts and not about things like the heights of the candidates. If you want to keep playing these semantic games go ahead, but the only one you're amusing is yourself. What we're talking about here is wrong impressions about factual matters. The degree of certainty about those wrong impressions doesn't change the fact that they're a) wrong, and b) pertaining to matters of fact.

Yes, there is a reason. Those who felt more certain of their opinions would have chosen the "don't know" option less frequently. There are significant differences in the demographic makeup of the network news viewers vs print readers -- political affiliation, level of education, importance of religious beliefs -- and even among the various network news viewers. For example, CBS viewers had some odd anomalies compared to the rest. Do Republicans have more confidence in their opinions than Democrats do, or is the reverse the case? Do less-educated people have more confidence in their opinions than better-educated ones or is it the other way around? I'll admit that I don't know which is the case, since I have seen no relevant studies on the issue. So can we confidently claim that a more Republican, more religiously dogmatic, less-educated group (FOX viewers) will say "I don't know" in exactly the same ratio as a more Democrat, more secular, better-educated group (PBS/NPR)? No, we cannot. We can guess, but we have already agreed that speculation won't cut the mustard in this thread.

The only way that having a "don't know" option would work in favor of the FOX viewers would be if they were more scrupulous and better trained in matters like standards of evidence. Given the demographic profile of the FOX viewership, the exact opposite is more likely to be true, in which case, having a "don't know" option would make the FOX viewers wrong by an even greater margin. I didn't have proof handy to show that this is the case, so I just settled upon a baseline assumption that gives equal credit to all groups involved--in which case, the ratio stays roughly the same. In any case, either of these propositions is far more tenable than one that would claim that FOX viewers would be more likely than others to say "don't know" when they're not sure.

The instruction has the same import that the question does. For whatever reason, you are convinced that the percentages would have been identical whether the instructions read as they did or if they had cautioned the respondents to answer only the ones they were 100% sure of. I dispute that contention. I cannot see why you are being so stubborn on this point. Surely you don't believe you will get the same answer to the following two questions :
"Is it your impression -- whether you are confident of your answer or not, whether you have any knowledge of his actual statement or not -- that Bush, in his State of the Union address, claimed Iraq was an imminent threat to the US?"
and
"Are you 100% certain that Bush, in his State of the Union address, claimed Iraq was an imminent threat to the US?


I'm not saying the percentages would have been identical--I'm sure more people in all groups would have answered "don't know." What I'm saying is that the ratios among the groups would remain roughly the same. You understand the difference between an absolute percentage and a ratio, don't you?

Secondly, any poll that's worded "Are you 100% certain that . . ." would be absolutely worthless. Most people would have to answer "don't know" for every single question, thereby yielding no information whatsoever. Very few people are absolutely, 100% certain about anything. Can you say that you are 100% certain about what day your birthday is? No, you can't, because you weren't conscious about things like calendars at the time and weren't for quite a long time thereafter. Your "certain" knowledge about your birthday is based on hearsay--well documented hearsay, to be sure, but since not directly verified by you, not something that you can be 100% certain of.

And yet in PIPA's detailed analysis, that range of questions was ignored, with the authors instead deliberately choosing to focus on a single option: and not on the option which had the highest percentage response, but on the one they judged most egregiously wrong.

The one that was most egregiously wrong according to the best knowledge we have available. So what? It's a legitimate cause for concern if large segments of the populous get such important questions egregiously wrong.

And I still say the percentage would have been different given different instructions and the standard "I don't know" option. You choose to believe otherwise. There is no point in discussing this further, since there is no way of verifying whose position is correct. We can spin our wheels for months on this one.

I repeat: I didn't say the percentages wouldn't change, I said the ratios wouldn't. I came to that conclusion by making the most generous assumption possible on behalf of the FOX audience, which is that they would choose "don't know" by roughly the same percentage as other groups, when it is actually far more likely that they would choose "don't know" less often and be wrong by an even greater margin than they are now.

People with preconceptions tend to look for support for these preconceptions and ignore the rest. In the case of FOX, this may be a rabid O'Reilly or Hannity or Limbaugh fan who never misses one of their shows, and uses their opinions and commentary as factual support for his point of view. These guys reinforce what he is already predisposed to believe

Okay, so FOX News per se doesn't broadcast false information, their commentators do? And their commentators spread false information more often than commentators at other networks. Or maybe FOX blurs the distinction between news and commentary more often than other networks. The poll does not elucidate the exact mechanism by which FOX viewers get so in the dark about the facts, nor can it, but the general conclusion is still that watching FOX, taken as a whole, is bad for your understanding of objective fact.

The point is that this kind of enthusiast (or political junkie or however you want to describe them) naturally tends to pay closer attention to thing political than the guy who has the tv on as background noise while he eats his dinner, yet just because he pays more attention does not guarantee that his preconceptions will be altered. Let's be realistic: he doesn't pay attention in order to have his beliefs proven wrong, but to have them vindicated.

So is it your contention that everybody pays attention to news, all the time, simply in order to have their beliefs vindicated? Kind of a sweeping generalization, wouldn't you say? I understand the psychological predisposition you're referring to: I am guilty of it from time to time, as is probably everybody. But human beings also have the capacity for moments of lucidity, moments when they recognize the weight of fact and realize that their long-term happiness, nay, survival even, depends on adjusting their beliefs to fit the facts, and not vice versa. My argument is that FOX, more often than even other networks (none of whose track record is that great to begin with), denies its viewers opportunities for those moments of lucidity by hewing closely to a specific ideological agenda and misrepresenting the facts whenever necessary in order to ensure that said agenda never undergoes serious challenge.

And that, in a word, is propaganda, not news.

I repeat my premise that given a different set of questions -- a set of questions which fall on both sides of a given political issue rather than the three lopsided questions cherry-picked by PIPA -- the FOX group would do better; not necessarily because they know more about it, but because the correct answer fits with their preconceived worldview. I realize you will not accept my premise lacking another poll, so there is really no point dwelling further on it.

I will continue dwelling on it as long as you insist on reiterating it without even a shred of proof.

There are plenty of right-wing think tanks with deep pockets who would be willing to fund such a new study in order to set the record straight (if it needs straightening, that is). Maybe you should write to one of them and tell them that libbies on the internet are using the PIPA study to beat FOX watchers over the head. Tell them there has to be a new study to show that FOX viewers are better informed on many questions than PBS viewers, questions like "Have Bush's tax cuts helped the economy?" (snicker). My guess is that the folks at the American Enterprise Institute et al know enough about FOX that they wouldn't be willing to waste their money funding a study that would cause even further embarassment.

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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: EchoVortex]
    #2045653 - 10/26/03 08:25 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

EchoVortex writes:

What we're talking about here is wrong impressions about factual matters. The degree of certainty about those wrong impressions doesn't change the fact that they're a) wrong, and b) pertaining to matters of fact.

No, what we are talking about here is three specific questions, all of which try to show the invasion of Iraq was a mistake; one of which -- the degree of Al Qaeda linkage -- is open to interpretation, and another of which -- the number of people in the world opposed to the invasion -- is as yet factually undetermined.

But let's for a moment assume that the factual answers to all three questions are known to a certainty -- that there is a known, objectively correct response to each. The poll is still meaningless when it comes to determining how "mistaken" a given group of respondents are for the following reasons:

a) it invites people to give answers in which they may have no confidence, on things of which they may have no knowledge
b) it covers a single topic
c) all the questions singled out about the single topic fall on the same side of a controversial issue.
d) the questions where the FOX group did better than the CBS group were excluded
e) one of the subgroups is too small to yield statistically significant results

The poll was never designed to show why one group has more misimpressions than the other, according to the author's own words. He claims that partway through the process he noticed an apparent correlation, and then made an attempt (and a half-assed attempt at that) to investigate this correlation further.

I didn't have proof handy to show that this is the case, so I just settled upon a baseline assumption that gives equal credit to all groups involved--in which case, the ratio stays roughly the same.

And I say that assumption is wrong. It is unproven (and illogical to assume) that every demographic has the same degree of certainty about their impressions. Without proof, your opinion on the matter has no more (or less) relevance than mine.

I'm not saying the percentages would have been identical--I'm sure more people in all groups would have answered "don't know." What I'm saying is that the ratios among the groups would remain roughly the same.

Why do you believe that every group, regardless of political affiliation, religious affiliation, and educational level, has the same degree of certainty about the correctness of impressions on things they have no confidence in and may have no knowledge about? To which study can you refer us which demonstrates this?

Secondly, any poll that's worded "Are you 100% certain that . . ." would be absolutely worthless. Most people would have to answer "don't know" for every single question, thereby yielding no information whatsoever.

You're dodging the issue. Do you or do you not agree that the sentence "I get the impression that guy is gay," has a different meaning from the sentence "I know that guy is gay" ?

You berate me for my "semantic gymnastics" when all I am doing is pointing out that words have meaning. The links you yourself referred us to (the ABC polls methodology link and the Gallup link) emphasize in no uncertain terms the critical importance of question design, yet you seem to be arguing they can be asked any old way at all and produce identical results.

Okay, so FOX News per se doesn't broadcast false information, their commentators do? And their commentators spread false information more often than commentators at other networks. Or maybe FOX blurs the distinction between news and commentary more often than other networks. The poll does not elucidate the exact mechanism by which FOX viewers get so in the dark about the facts, nor can it, but the general conclusion is still that watching FOX, taken as a whole, is bad for your understanding of objective fact.

Again, you miss the point. Certain enthusiasts watch not just the news, but also commentary. When asked how much attention they pay to news, does it not stand to reason that at least some of those who faithfully watch their favorite op-ed shows, O'Reilly or Hannity or whatever, (as opposed to those who just watch a half hour at six o'clock) might fail to differentiate between "news" and "discussion about news"? In other words, in their minds, by pursuing what they perceive to more detail about current events, they are "paying more attention". I say it does stand to reason some would answer that way. Of course, this holds true of those who watch any political discussion shows, but the second part of my point is that (from what I have read here and elsewhere), FOX has a higher percentage of these "enthusiasts" (some call them right-wing nutjobs) than does ABC or NBC, for example.

So is it your contention that everybody pays attention to news, all the time, simply in order to have their beliefs vindicated?

Re-read what I wrote. I was careful to differentiate between "everybody" and enthusiasts.

But human beings also have the capacity for moments of lucidity, moments when they recognize the weight of fact and realize that their long-term happiness, nay, survival even, depends on adjusting their beliefs to fit the facts, and not vice versa.

Agreed. Human beings do have that capacity. My argument is that by its nature, FOX appears more popular with those who choose to exercise that capacity less frequently. The enthusiasts I describe existed before there was a FOX News for them to watch. This is shown by the astonishingly rapid rise in popularity in such a short period of time -- these people were always out there, it's just that they had no "home" before the advent of FOX News. Or do you believe that FOX created these folks out of nowhere; that FOX managed to convert people from average half-awake news watchers into political junkies ?

My argument is that FOX, more often than even other networks (none of whose track record is that great to begin with), denies its viewers opportunities for those moments of lucidity by hewing closely to a specific ideological agenda and misrepresenting the facts whenever necessary in order to ensure that said agenda never undergoes serious challenge.

FOX misrepresents facts in their news programs to a greater extent than other networks?

I will continue dwelling on it as long as you insist on reiterating it without even a shred of proof.

Yet again we run into your double standard for debate. In one post, you insist that speculation is verboten -- nothing counts but empirical fact. Yet in the next, you speculate -- without even a shred of proof -- that FOX viewers are more likely to be sure of their opinions than non-FOX viewers. Either we may both propose stuff with no proof or neither of us may. Up to you.
.
pinky


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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: infidelGOD]
    #2045754 - 10/26/03 08:57 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

infidelGOD writes:

it specifically asks for peoples impressions so they can compare them to reality and determine how misinformed they are.

You still don't get it. Having an impression is not even close to the same thing as being either informed or misinformed. Words have meaning. "Impression" doesn't mean "belief". If you are going to redefine words according to your own personal whims, there is no point continuing this discussion.

As for the design of that questionnaire, nobody just pulls instructions like those out of thin air, they deliberately design them that way.

the phrasing of the question and the instructions don't really change anything.

Incorrect. Both Gallup and the ABC polls methodology polls say the phrasing is all-important.

this is normally how polls are done.

Incorrect. I don't know about you, but I have never seen another poll on any topic with instructions worded like that.

no it was clearly designed to find out peoples impressions, perceptions and misperceptions. I thought this was obvious.

And I thought it obvious that an impression is not equivalent to a perception.

a sample size of 40 people is just as accurate as a sample size of 800 if both represent the same precentages of the whole, for example, if the 40 represented a group of 4000 and the 800 represented a group of 80000.

The key phrase here is "just as correct". The thing is, that group of 40 people is not representing a group of 4000, but a group of over 8 million. No pollster in the world will claim that a survey of 40 people out of several million is accurate to the same degree as a survey of several hundred. The smaller the group, the larger the percentage of error. It is not a straight line all the way down from 160, to 80, then 40, then 20, then 10, then 5. Below a certain threshold number the statistical "noise" is greater than the evidentiary value. Once you get below a certain size, saying "just as correct" is the same as saying "just as random". Read the Gallup link.

I know you're going to keep trying to rip apart this poll, but this is pretty much how polls are done. there's nothing logically wrong with the methodology...

Sorry, but ABC and Gallup both disagree with you.

... and the phrasing of the questions tells you exactly what kind of perceptions or "impressions" people have, which is exactly what the poll is trying to find out.

Assuming that this is in fact what the poll was designed to find, my point has been made. The statements made in Myerson's article don't deal with impressions -- Myerson says, "The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong."

I'm sure logic told you that Iraqis wanted freedom, but I thought we were talking about Iraqis wanting an American invasion? you seemed to have confused the two.

Take the time to search the forum and find the links to the polls. That is in fact what they were asked.

there are more poll results in page 8 of the PIPA report...

They refer to the same polls EchoVortex provided. Grand total of 62 different countries.

even you agree that the world was opposed.

Nope. I said in my opinion, it is likely more people were opposed than in favor. I also said my opinion is meaningless when held to the standard of verifiable fact. What we are fighting about here are facts. Why must I keep repeating myself? Do you not bother to read what I write?

can we at least say that there is a consensus here that the world was opposed to the war? this is a question that has an answer whether or not you want to accept it as fact.

And at one point there was a consensus that the earth was flat. The respondents were not asked "Do you believe the general consensus is that most people in the world opposed the war?"

yes these polls do exist and they do suggest strongly that the world was opposed to the war, but I already told you that I don't rely on polls to know this so how am I having things both ways?

If you didn't rely on polls, how did you acquire this knowledge?

IF I had said that polls prove that the world was opposed, and that was my only piece of evidence, THEN I would be required to provide proof. but I gave other reasons besides polls.

The only reasons you gave were "common sense" and "common knowledge" and "logic".

I have yet to see a single poll from you proving that the majority of Iraqis supported the invasion.

Don't be lazy. Search the forum. There are links in recent (last month or so) threads to articles covering the surveys of the Basra region, Mosul region and I-forget-the-other-region; as well as the Baghdad poll. Those four areas comprise the majority of the populace of Iraq, which is why the pollsters chose them.

you seem to be confused here. 40 people is not total the sample size.

3% of 1362 people is 41. That is the number of PBS viewers combined with the number of NPR listeners. All the conclusions PIPA reached about PBS/NPR impressions came from a pool of 41 people. That was the sample size they were working with.

you sure are going out of your way to discredit the findings of this poll.

Not all the findings, no. There is nothing I can find wrong with the methodology linking the percentage of those saying they would vote for Bush next election and those who say they supported the invasion, for example.

it's good that you're informed, but we're not talking about your misperceptions here (if you have any), we're talking about the misperceptions of FOX news viewers.

No, we are not. We are talking about impressions lacking confidence about matters of which the respondent may have no knowledge.

I don't take that as fact either.

Then why have you spent hours defending it?

it just shows a strong correlation between watching FOX news and holding certain incorrect impressions. that's all.

Which is what I have said all along -- those whose impressions in which they may have no confidence, regarding issues of which they may have no knowledge, are out of line with the "collective consensus" tend to be more likely to prefer FOX News over other network news. We agree. Let's both quit and go home.

ah more word games from you...

I find it amusing you call accepting the fact that words have meaning "word games".

the word "perception" can be subtituted for "impression" here...

No, it cannot. Even pretending for the next few minutes that it can, we are far beyond even "impressions" when it comes to the wording of this poll. It is impressions in which we have no confidence, about things of which we have no knowledge. That definition is so much vaguer than "impressions" that we'll have to invent a whole new word for it.

... so that answering these questions wrong would mean you have a "misperception". simple isn't it? if it is your impression or preception or opinion or whatever that WMD have been found in Iraq, guess what? you're WRONG!

Okay, now you have moved from impression on to perception, then on to opinion. Sorry, but an impression is not the same as an opinion.

there is nothing wrong with the way those questions are phrased. that is generally how it is done in polls. it asks for peoples impressions to see how closely they match reality - to see how misinformed they are.

You are repeating yourself. Answered above.

this is an entirely subjective question. it is fact that Bush never specifically called Iraq an imminent threat.

Good, then we agree the question can be answered correctly. As a matter of fact, we even agree what the correct answer is -- Bush made no such claim.

but it is your opinion that such a claim was never made to the American people - an opinion based on one line in the State of the Union address, which I presume, you read on the internet, while ignoring others things that were said that suggested Iraq was an imminent threat.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Said by whom? By Bush? Not so. And I must point out that "suggested" is not the same as "claimed".

you have to look beyond your over-reliance on the print media here because when such claims are made, the preferred method of the US goverment is TV.

We are not talking about the preferred method of US government. We are talking about issues of fact. Every single word of Bush's press conferences is available on the net as transcripts. We don't have to guess what he said, or try to remember what he said, we can verify what he said.

I bet you didn't see the numerous press conferences where president Bush raised the spectre of a mushroom cloud over an American city and said that Iraq was six months away from getting a nuke, or warned us about hundreds of tons of biological and chemical weapons.

I read the transcripts. I bet I got more out of reading the transcripts than someone watching it live on TV with the telephone ringing and his kids fighting on the rug in front of the Sony.

people could decide for themselves if president Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent threat.

Of course they could. That doesn't mean they decided correctly.

one line in the State of the Union adress certainly does not settle it, there is a lot more to it which you are not aware of.

I doubt it. In this forum alone, links were provided to every quote the Bush-bashers could dredge up attempting to show he had claimed such a thing. He didn't.

people will have different opinions on this as they should.

That doesn't make their opinions correct. And that is the whole point of the add-on to the PIPA poll -- incorrect impressions.

and btw, you claimed that the PBS/NPR audience would do worse (or to put it more accurately, they would hold the "wrong opinion") on this question than FOX news viewers. how did you come to this conclusion?

Actually, I didn't. It was Sullivan's e-mail writer who did, but it doesn't matter, since the number of PBSers questioned is too small to say with any degree of certainty what impressions they really hold.

do you have any evidence to back it up? let's not forget that these four questions are hypothetical. we only have the emailer's assumption that the PBS viewer would do worse than the FOX news viewer.

You yourself say that liberals hold misperceptions. The majority of people who get most of their news from PBS/NPR are liberals. Therefore, if I had the freedom to cherrypick just three questions, I could tailor them to liberal misperceptions, and end up with PBS/NPR folks getting things wrong more than the predominantly conservative FOX News crew, who hold a different set of preconceptions.

please show me a poll that proves that a majority of Iraqis supported the US invasion. so far all you have are polls from urban Baghdad (which I have yet to see). I imagine you have polls from all of Iraq?

They have been linked in this forum recently. Look them up. Each one has been linked at least twice (not by me or I could provide them for you without having to search).

we certainly don't have any polls actually proving this so I don't see how there can be a factual answer to this question.

Yeah we do. You just haven't read them yet. They were reported in the mainstream news when they were published, then they sank without a trace. Polls with results like this aren't pushed by editors in the press to the same extent that stories about Kobe Bryant and Jessica Lynch are. Blink and you miss them. But that's not due to liberal bias in the press, oh no not at all. It's just a coincidence.

and I think you're being rather hypocritical here. a while ago in another thread you were arguing that anthrax cultures = WMD.

You have mistaken me for someone else.

the difference is that the emailer's questions are subjective. questions like "was the toppling of the statue staged?" or "did Bush claim Iraq was an imminent threat?" have people on BOTH sides of the debate with different opinions, different interpretations.

Your double standard is that you claim these questions are open to interpretation, yet the degree of linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda is not.

when he says "imagine an opposite kind of poll" and asks those questions, he assumes that his questions have the same kind of objective answers as in the original poll...

His assumption is correct. Bush didn't make the claim. The toppling of the statue was not staged. The US did not sell significant amounts of arms to Iraq. The majority of Iraqis favor the invasion.

there are people who believe that this is precisely what Bush did. don't you get it?

And the people who believe that are wrong, just as the people in the poll who have the impression with no confidence about something they may have no knowledge of that WMD were found hold inaccurate impressions. Don't you get it?

my point was that if you didn't have a TV in the last 16 years, how could you possibly know the answers to questions like "was the toppling of the statue staged" or "did Bush claim Iraq was an imminent threat".

Through print reports, mpg files, still photos, transcripts, information published in this forum, etc.

I obviously did read the report and yes there are other questions that aren't used. so what?

So for you it is mere coincidence that the questions showing CBS viewers held inaccurate impressions in a higher percentage than FOX viewers were discarded, even though they were part of the same poll asked to the same group? Okay then.

so you have no evidence of this, obviously. and you are not familiar with FOX news or it's viewers but you still contend that "the PBS/NPR crowd is as misinformed"? why do you believe this? do you have any logical basis for this belief?

Statistically speaking, lefties tend to hold a certain set of preconceptions, often in the face of evidence to the contrary. The same can be said of righties, except they have a different set of pet preconceptions. Both groups tend to let their preconceptions color their impressions, since both groups are human. Therefore, depending on which preconceptions are targeted (through the selection of different questions on one side or the other of a controversial issue), different impressions will result.

then how do you explain the fact that those who paid closer attention to FOX news were the ones who were most misinformed?

See my post to EchoVortex re "enthusiasts".

are you going to reverse causality on this one too and say that those who are most misinformed are the ones who are more likely to pay more attention to FOX news or some BS like that?

It is not reversing causality, but otherwise, you have it essentially right. To distance ourselves a bit from this specific poll, imagine instead the UFO crowd. UFO buffs pay more attention to websites such as rense.com purporting to prove crop circles are the work of aliens than the average person off the street does. They hold a certain preconception, and spend a lot of time feeding it -- they pay more attention to those articles than you or I. The more fanatical the UFO buff, the more attention he pays.

you took this line compeletely out of context. the questions under discussion don't ask if it is "likely" or "somewhat likely" that WMD have been found in Iraq. it simply asks for peoples impressions...

You are making my point for me. Thank you.

I think everyone should read the PIPA report for themselves. there is some great info in there and the results speak for themselves.

On this we both agree.

I looked at it critically and I have yet to see any specific flaws in the polling methodology.

Look harder.

if you don't agree with the results of the poll, I imagine you would be looking hard for it though, maybe a little too hard.

As I said, I have no objections to many of the conclusions they reach.

he does not say that watching FOX news causes people to be misinformed, he just says that FOX news viewers are more misinformed.

Yeah he does. He says, "The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong."

and of course you try to ignore this gross logical error in the email (hey as long as it proves your point right?), while trying to pick apart the PIPA poll and it's methodology with your incomplete understanding of margin of error and your contention that since the poll asks for impressions, these people are not really misinformed (yeah they just have the wrong impressions! duh), while simultaneously arguing that there are hard, factual answers to subjective questions like "was the toppling of the statue staged?" or "did Bush claim Iraq was an imminent threat?". absolutely ridiculous man. once again, another one of your brilliantly written posts but once again, showing a distinct lack of logic.

Well, let's sum up some of your ridiculousness and lack of logic then:

1) you don't trust polls, but you trust the results of the PIPA poll
2) an impression (even one in which you have no confidence, about something of which you have no knowledge) is identical to a belief
3) you admit there is no proof that the majority of the world opposed the invasion, yet we are to accept it as a fact
4) the definition of "stage" is to cause to happen, but you provide no evidence that the media (or the pentagon) caused it to happen
5) no matter how a question is worded, the results of a poll will be the same
6) no matter how few people are polled, the results have validity
7) even though you acknowledge Bush made no such claim, you say people who believe he made it are not factually wrong

There's probably more, but frankly I'm too tired to go back and find them now. It doesn't matter anyway. There's probably only three of us even reading this thread anymore, none of us is coming up with anything new, none of us will change the opinion of the others. If you choose to believe a biased and sloppily designed poll proves that the more you watch FOX News the more you'll get things wrong, feel free to continue to believe it. No skin off my nose.

pinky


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InvisibleinfidelGOD
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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: Phred]
    #2046379 - 10/27/03 01:13 AM (20 years, 5 months ago)

You still don't get it. Having an impression is not even close to the same thing as being either informed or misinformed.

so you're going to reject the findings of this poll because it asks for impressions...

let's see... if you're going to conduct a poll trying to see what kind of impressions people are getting from the media, doesn't it make sense to ask for people's impressions? this seems perfectly normal and obvious to me.

those questions do tell you how misinformed people are. and remember that everyone in the poll was asked for their impressions, not just the FOX news viewers. everyone had to answer the same questions, whether they were certain of the answers or not. so the comparative results (which is really what this poll is about) are still valid.

nobody just pulls instructions like those out of thin air, they deliberately design them that way.

you know, they give the same kind of instructions in the SAT. they tell you to go ahead and guess your best answer based on what you know. to make an educated guess. this isn't so unusual, and I don't see why you would reject the poll based on this. and again, everyone was given the same instructions. if only the poor FOX news viewers were forced to answer questions they didn't have the answers to, you might have a point.

The thing is, that group of 40 people is not representing a group of 4000, but a group of over 8 million

right, but you're missing the key point. if 40 people represents 1.672% of the PBS/NPR audience and 240 people also represents 1.672% of FOX news viewers, statistically speaking, they are equally represenstitve of their respective groups. this is just simple logic which I have already explained.

The statements made in Myerson's article don't deal with impressions -- Myerson says, "The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong."

ok. whatever. maybe he should have said "The more you watch, the more likely you'll have the wrong impressions". still doesn't change the fact that FOX news viewers have things wrong.

yes these polls do exist and they do suggest strongly that the world was opposed to the war, but I already told you that I don't rely on polls to know this so how am I having things both ways?

If you didn't rely on polls, how did you acquire this knowledge?


there are many ways to "know" things without rigorous polls. I know that the world was opposed to the US invasion. there was the UN non-vote, statements made from the coutries themselves, massive demonstrations all over the world, including in countries that supported the war, and of course a little bit of common sense and logic. I certainly don't rely solely on polls to know things.

you seem to be confused here. 40 people is not total the sample size.

3% of 1362 people is 41. That is the number of PBS viewers combined with the number of NPR listeners. All the conclusions PIPA reached about PBS/NPR impressions came from a pool of 41 people. That was the sample size they were working with.


ummm. I said that it wasn't the total sample size. the small number is a function of the actual number of people who get their news from PBS or NPR. if there were more of them, this sample size would be larger but it wouldn't be a more accurate representation because it would still be the same percentage of the total. I don't think you're getting this whole statistics thing. if I did a poll and sampled a group of 40 and another group of 500, you would think that the 500 is more representative wouldn't you? well, what if I said that the 40 represented 4000 people and the 500 represented a million people? would you still say that the group of 500 is more representative because it's a larger sample??? think about it. everything is relative.

In this forum alone, links were provided to every quote the Bush-bashers could dredge up attempting to show he had claimed such a thing. He didn't.

alright here's the thing. you can make a claim for something without actually saying the exact words. so I'm not surprised that you don't think Bush made such a claim, because you never read it. and since you never read it, you think that settles it, and you take it as fact. but there are people, even many senators and congressman, who have read everything Bush has said, and they still believe that he claimed Iraq was an imminent threat. I would guess that most Americans would think that Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent threat. yes we all know that Bush never actually called Iraq an imminent threat in those exact words but that doesn't really mean anything. I mean, can you find where Bush said Osama bin Laden was an imminent threat? in those exact words? if he never said it, does it mean he never made that claim? think about it, there's more to it than just searching the internet to see the exact words that were said.

You yourself say that liberals hold misperceptions. The majority of people who get most of their news from PBS/NPR are liberals. Therefore, if I had the freedom to cherrypick just three questions, I could tailor them to liberal misperceptions, and end up with PBS/NPR folks getting things wrong more than the predominantly conservative FOX News crew, who hold a different set of preconceptions.

well can you pick those three questions? go ahead, I know that there won't be any polls, and you couldn't prove anything but I want to see what you could come up with. just three fact based questions for the PBS/NPR crowd. and don't assume that PBS or NPR is the liberal equivalent of FOX news. they are on average much better informed and better educated than the average FOX news viewer. you probably already guessed that.

Your double standard is that you claim these questions are open to interpretation, yet the degree of linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda is not.

yeah sure the degree of linkage is open to interpretation and there was a question that addressed just that in the poll. but don't change the terms of the debate. the actual question was "Is it your impression that the US has or has not found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization?" and if you had the "impression" that such clear evidence has been found, I'm afraid you are misinformed, or you have the "wrong impression" or whatever you want to call being WRONG. I'm sorry but this particular question is not open to interpretation.

His assumption is correct. Bush didn't make the claim. The toppling of the statue was not staged. The US did not sell significant amounts of arms to Iraq. The majority of Iraqis favor the invasion.

incorrect. his questions clearly are open to interpretation to a much greater degree than the questions asked in the PIPA poll. some of his questions would be answered "wrong" by many well informed people who simply see things differently. can you say the same about the questions in the PIPA poll?

So for you it is mere coincidence that the questions showing CBS viewers held inaccurate impressions in a higher percentage than FOX viewers were discarded, even though they were part of the same poll asked to the same group? Okay then.

I think that the article is about the misperceptions of FOX news viewers, not CBS viewers. but how does the exclusion of questions showing FOX news viewers doing better than CBS viewers invalidate the finding that FOX news viewers were more misinformed than NPR/PBS viewers?

so you have no evidence of this, obviously. and you are not familiar with FOX news or it's viewers but you still contend that "the PBS/NPR crowd is as misinformed"? why do you believe this? do you have any logical basis for this belief?

Statistically speaking, lefties tend to hold a certain set of preconceptions, often in the face of evidence to the contrary. The same can be said of righties, except they have a different set of pet preconceptions. Both groups tend to let their preconceptions color their impressions, since both groups are human


sure, I agree with that, I said as much already. but you didn't answer my question: why do you think that the PBS/NPR crowd (not lefties) is as misinformed as FOX news viewers (not righties)? PBS and NPR are not liberal versions of FOX news. there is actual in-depth analysis of the news there and many intelligent conservatives and moderates get their news from public TV and radio. not for idealogical reasons, but it's the only place they could get news free from commercial interests and just because of the quality of the reporting itself. it's pretty clear that people who get their news from PBS or NPR are not seperated from FOX news viewers by ideology alone.

They hold a certain preconception, and spend a lot of time feeding it -- they pay more attention to those articles than you or I. The more fanatical the UFO buff, the more attention he pays.

so you essentially agree that FOX news does give the wrong impressions to their viewers... but of course only to the viewers who are more apt to accept those impressions, those who are more likely to pay more attention to every possible (however thin) lead about WMD being discovered or every unsubstantiated story about connections between Iraq and al qaida being hyped etc that is standard fare on FOX news.

I looked at it critically and I have yet to see any specific flaws in the polling methodology.

Look harder


can you point to any specific flaws in the polling methodology? I'm afraid you'll have to do better than "they ask for impressions".

he does not say that watching FOX news causes people to be misinformed, he just says that FOX news viewers are more misinformed.

Yeah he does. He says, "The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong."


maybe you misundertood him, but that just means that the more closely you pay attention to FOX news, the more likely you are to get things wrong, which is exactly what the poll found. it doesn't say that FOX news actually causes people to have things wrong, which would be pretty much impossible to prove anyway.

Well, let's sum up some of your ridiculousness and lack of logic then:

1) you don't trust polls, but you trust the results of the PIPA poll


I just don't trust incomplete polls coming out of a warzone. I do trust a lot of other polls. however, I never take them as fact.

2) an impression (even one in which you have no confidence, about something of which you have no knowledge) is identical to a belief

an impression that does not match reality is a false impression. and FOX news viewers tend to have impressions that are far from reality. that's all. it doesn't have to be their belief that WMD have been found, if they have the impression that WMD have been found, they're still wrong.

3) you admit there is no proof that the majority of the world opposed the invasion, yet we are to accept it as a fact

there is actually a lot of evidence that the majority of the world was opposed but you don't have to accept it as fact if you don't want to. you can just take it as a standard to judge the accuracy of peoples impressions.

4) the definition of "stage" is to cause to happen, but you provide no evidence that the media (or the pentagon) caused it to happen

I never said that the media or the pentagon caused it (there you go misrepresenting my position again). I only said that the question was open to interpretation. you are the one who said it was a fact that it wasn't staged. and btw, the definition of stage is not "cause to happen", which is apparently the definition you're going by. the complete definition is "to produce or cause to happen for public view or public effect". is it so farfetched to think that this is precisely what happened? do you know the motivations of those who caused the event? you seem to be sure of it. I'm not so sure, that's why I think the question is open to interpretation. I think it's a very likely possibility that it was staged for the cameras.

5) no matter how a question is worded, the results of a poll will be the same

I said no such thing. I said that the way those questions were phrased do not change the results of this particular poll. if the same questions, with the exact same wording is given to everyone, and FOX news viewers still did the worst, the comparative results are still valid.

6) no matter how few people are polled, the results have validity

you don't seem to understand statistics. there are less NPR/PBS viewers out there, so there will be a smaller sample of them in a poll. this is very obvious.

7) even though you acknowledge Bush made no such claim, you say people who believe he made it are not factually wrong

actually what I acknowledged was that Bush never actually said Iraq was an imminent threat. whether or not he made that claim is a different question and one that is open to interpretation.

in fairness let me compile a list of your ridiculousness and lack of logic.

1) you think that there are hard, factual answers to subjective questions like "was the statue scene staged?" and "did Bush claim Iraq was an imminent threat?"
2) FOX news viewers who thought that WMD have been found in Iraq are not really "misinformed" because the poll asked for their "impressions".
3) any poll that instructs you to answer to the best of your knowledge is flawed.
4) a sample group of 40 cannot give any meaningful results in a poll.
5) it is absolute truth that the toppling of the statue wasn't staged because "it happened" and because you've read "endless critiques" of it.
6) Bush never made the claim that Iraq was an imminent threat because he never actually said it.
7) if you hold the "incorrect" opinions on the emailer's questions, you are "misinformed"
8) it is fact that the majority of Iraqis supported the invasion.
9) the NPR/PBS audience is as misinformed as FOX news viewers, but you have absolutely no evidence to support this.
10) causality is the "the entire premise behind Myerson's screed"
11) the only way to know things is through rigorous polls.

you seem unwilling or incapable of making the key distinction between objective and subjective questions. let me sum up some of the questions here (I took out the questions dealing with polls or public opinion):

from the original poll:

Since the war with Iraq ended, is it your impression that the US has or has not found
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?

Is it your impression that the US has or has not found clear evidence in Iraq that
Saddam Hussein was working closely with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization?


these questions seem pretty objective but according to you there are no right answers here because they ask for impressions and because the instructions tell you to answer even if you are not certain. you could think what you want about the phrasing of these questions or the instructions but the key here is that the answers given will depend entirely on peoples knowledge (or ignorance) of facts, or if you like, their "impression" of facts.

but for these questions:

Did President Bush claim before the war that the threat to the US from Iraq's WMD was imminent?

Did the US sell significant amounts of arms to Saddam Hussein?

Was the toppling of the Saddam statue at the end of the war staged?


you say there are factual "correct" answers? even though some are clearly subjective? even though some are entirely dependent on people's opinions and interpretations and not on their knowledge of facts? these questions are not only subjective, they are ambiguous as well. what exactly does he mean by "significant amounts of arms"? should we be guessing the criteria here? the answer depends on what the criteria is. you could certainly call a small amount of anthrax or botulism that we sold to Iraq a "significant amount of arms" if the criteria is kill potential, but not if the criteria is tonnage, or actual use. we are left to guess what he meant by it... you seemed to have already decided that the criteria is tonnage and come up with your own "correct" answer but you don't get to decide what the criteria is for everyone. people who are well-informed of the facts will answer differently depending on their interpretation of the question. that's why these questions would never be used in a poll to determine misperceptions. they are way too subjective. he might as well be asking for your favorite color and saying you're "misinformed" if you answer "incorrectly".

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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: infidelGOD]
    #2046600 - 10/27/03 03:47 AM (20 years, 5 months ago)

Look, it's pretty obvious that since you appear to WANT to believe Fox viewers have more incorrect impressions, that nothing could be said that will change your mind.

Pinky destroyed all arguements about this long ago.

Give it a rest while you can still walk away with a shred of dignity left.


--------------------
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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OfflineEchoVortex
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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: Phred]
    #2046774 - 10/27/03 07:32 AM (20 years, 5 months ago)

No, what we are talking about here is three specific questions, all of which try to show the invasion of Iraq was a mistake; one of which -- the degree of Al Qaeda linkage -- is open to interpretation, and another of which -- the number of people in the world opposed to the invasion -- is as yet factually undetermined.

The three questions are closely tied with the innuendo and half-truths given as justification for the war. If Bush had told the American people "we're doing this simply because the Iraqi people want us to," the question as to the Iraqi people's wishes would be germane.

Do you actually think it is "open to interpretation" whether Iraq had a direct role in the 9/11 attacks? Only if you're interpreting non-existent evidence. Given that results are in from more than a third of the countries of the world representing over two-thirds of the world's population, to say that the world's opposition to the war is not "factually determined" is wishful thinking, pure and simple.

a) it invites people to give answers in which they may have no confidence, on things of which they may have no knowledge

If they have no knowledge, then they are also, by definition, misinformed.

b) it covers a single topic

Only the single most important topic facing the United States at the present time. Going to war is not a trifling matter.

c) all the questions singled out about the single topic fall on the same side of a controversial issue.

It's not the pollster's fault if all of Bush and Blair's fear-mongering was an edifice built on sand. Those two set the terms of the debate, and they may take the responsibility for making claims for which they had no proof.

d) the questions where the FOX group did better than the CBS group were excluded

Exluded from where? From Meyerson's editorial or from the report itself? If it was excluded from the report, how would you know about them?

e) one of the subgroups is too small to yield statistically significant results

Not true, as both infidelGod and I have shown from two separate angles. Even if it were true, the results of NPR/PBS are unrelated to the fact that the FOX crowd was at the bottom of the entire barrel.

And I say that assumption is wrong. It is unproven (and illogical to assume) that every demographic has the same degree of certainty about their impressions. Without proof, your opinion on the matter has no more (or less) relevance than mine.

I called it a baseline assumption. Maybe for clarity's sake I should have called it a "working assumption"--that is to say, an assumption made for the sake of argument. I personally believe it is not a true assumption, but given the fact that neither of us can prove either that FOX viewers are more or less likely than others to have the same degree of certainty about their answers, it is the only possible admissible assumption. Of course you don't want to accept such an assumption, because the only way your objections carry ANY weight at all is if FOX viewers are MORE likely to answer "don't know" than others.

Why do you believe that every group, regardless of political affiliation, religious affiliation, and educational level, has the same degree of certainty about the correctness of impressions on things they have no confidence in and may have no knowledge about? To which study can you refer us which demonstrates this?

I DON'T believe that. I hope my previous comments make that clear. But I also certainly do not believe that FOX viewers are more likely to harbor self-doubt, have higher personal standards of what constitutes acceptable evidence, and be more scrupulous about such matters than a better educated, more politically centrist audience. That assumption flies both in the face of available evidence and simple logic. Unfortunately for you, that assumption would be the only one (if true) that would validate your objections to the wording of the instructions.

You're dodging the issue. Do you or do you not agree that the sentence "I get the impression that guy is gay," has a different meaning from the sentence "I know that guy is gay" ?

Both of those questions would rely upon direct experience of "that guy," either seeing him, talking with him, having sex with him, etc. However, unless they were privy to the inner workings of the Iraqi government, or have travelled the country with the weapons inspectors, or have gone around the world conducting polls in different countries, there is no way that the average Americans being polled in this survey would have any direct experience of the matters discussed in the questions. Both their "knowledge" and their "impressions" on those matters come from the same source: the media, which is the vehicle through which both the pronouncements of their government and the information gleaned by independent sources reaches them. Regardless of whether it is a "knowledge" or an "impression", it can still be traced back to the same source.

You berate me for my "semantic gymnastics" when all I am doing is pointing out that words have meaning. The links you yourself referred us to (the ABC polls methodology link and the Gallup link) emphasize in no uncertain terms the critical importance of question design, yet you seem to be arguing they can be asked any old way at all and produce identical results.


Straw man. I never said they can be "asked any old way": I pointed out, for example, that a poll requiring "100% certainty" would be useless. I also realize the fact that, asked a different way, those questions would have yielded a higher percentage of "don't know" answers. But nothing suggests that the ratios among the different groups, which is really the crux of the matter here, would work more in FOX's favor if the wording had insisted that one answer only when one is absolutely certain of that answer.

Again, you miss the point. Certain enthusiasts watch not just the news, but also commentary. When asked how much attention they pay to news, does it not stand to reason that at least some of those who faithfully watch their favorite op-ed shows, O'Reilly or Hannity or whatever, (as opposed to those who just watch a half hour at six o'clock) might fail to differentiate between "news" and "discussion about news"? In other words, in their minds, by pursuing what they perceive to more detail about current events, they are "paying more attention". I say it does stand to reason some would answer that way. Of course, this holds true of those who watch any political discussion shows, but the second part of my point is that (from what I have read here and elsewhere), FOX has a higher percentage of these

Maybe some of them might fail to make that differentiation, but it's not for you or me to say whether that contingent is large enough to account for the differences. Let me remind you that one commentator, Neil Cavuto, actually called those who opposed the war "sickening" on air. This says a lot about FOX. On none of the other networks considered in the study would a commentator actually hurl epithets of that nature at people who disagreed with his political opinions. I defy anyone on the forum to show me a single instance where they have.

Agreed. Human beings do have that capacity. My argument is that by its nature, FOX appears more popular with those who choose to exercise that capacity less frequently. The enthusiasts I describe existed before there was a FOX News for them to watch. This is shown by the astonishingly rapid rise in popularity in such a short period of time -- these people were always out there, it's just that they had no "home" before the advent of FOX News. Or do you believe that FOX created these folks out of nowhere; that FOX managed to convert people from average half-awake news watchers into political junkies ?


I never said FOX created those people out of nowhere. Some of them were probably that way before, and some of them were probably straddling the fence and had their thinking clouded by FOX's bias and sensationalism, all the while being gullible enough to belive the slogan "fair and balanced." But certainly FOX for it's part must be doing something not to offend those people and drive them away: and since broadcasting unvarnished truth, much of which will be offensive to blinkered minds, is one way of offending them, that's clearly not what they're doing. By the way, anybody who thinks that WMD were found in Iraq does not qualify as a "political junkie" in my book. The people on the forum ARE political junkies and I don't think there's a single person here, left or right, who would have gotten that question wrong.

FOX misrepresents facts in their news programs to a greater extent than other networks?

Misrepresentation by omission, just like the video of the Saddam statue. I know it would be convenient to dismiss lying by omission as not really being lying, but I'm afraid it IS still lying.

Yet again we run into your double standard for debate. In one post, you insist that speculation is verboten -- nothing counts but empirical fact. Yet in the next, you speculate -- without even a shred of proof -- that FOX viewers are more likely to be sure of their opinions than non-FOX viewers. Either we may both propose stuff with no proof or neither of us may. Up to you.


First you were criticizing me for assuming that all viewers would have the same certainty about their opinions, and now you're criticizing me for assuming that FOX viewers are more likely to be sure of their opinions than non-FOX viewers. So which is it? Which assumption did I make?

I stated my guess that FOX viewers would be less likely to answer "don't know" but I stated clearly at the time that I couldn't prove it and so didn't consider it an admissible assumption for the purposes of this debate. I therefore suggested (for the purposes of this debate) that we give equal credit to all viewers, since you obviously can't prove that FOX viewers would be more likely to answer "don't know", just like you don't have evidence for a single one of the claims you've made on this thread so far. I have provided numerous links, while you have provided nothing. I have made statements on the basis of evidence, however incomplete, while you have pulled pure, unmitigated speculation out of the air time and time again. My evidence may merely be "shreds" but your evidence wouldn't even qualify as vapor. If FOX viewers are as careless and self-indulgent in their relation to evidence as you have been in the course of this particular thread, every assumption I've made about them would be true.


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InvisibleinfidelGOD
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Registered: 04/18/02
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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #2048351 - 10/27/03 07:20 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

Look, it's pretty obvious that since you appear to WANT to believe Fox viewers have more incorrect impressions

this isn't about what I want to believe. it's about basing your beliefs on real evidence, not on baseless speculation.

that nothing could be said that will change your mind.

no, not nothing. if you or anyone else can produce any actual evidence, I would have no trouble changing my mind on this issue.

Pinky destroyed all arguements about this long ago

lol! you haven't been following this too closely have you?


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Invisibleluvdemshrooms
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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: infidelGOD]
    #2048356 - 10/27/03 07:22 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

Actually, I've read every word.


--------------------
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

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OfflineThe_Red_Crayon
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Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: luvdemshrooms]
    #2050843 - 10/28/03 02:34 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

Fox,Cnn,MSNBC, all of the news channels are nothing but Entertainment. They are not news. They are driven by what people want to hear. If the people are leaning to a more conservative than they dont want to hear that Iraq is a war we Cant win. They wanna hear news that is good. That Iraq is succesful that everything is gonna be ok.


Of course, Its been that way for years. It will only take a few years for reality to dawn on the general people, And when Americans start to be more Complacent about the war. Than maybe the general populace will find out than.


Just like Vietnam.

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OfflineSquattingMarmot
Inquiring Mind
Registered: 08/19/03
Posts: 418
Last seen: 9 years, 9 months
Re: Fox Viewers Most Misinformed [Re: The_Red_Crayon]
    #2050890 - 10/28/03 02:51 PM (20 years, 5 months ago)

This is one beast of a thread.


--------------------
"In the United States anybody can be president. Thats the problem."

"The gray-haired douche bag, Barbara Bush, has a slogan: "Encourage your child to read every day." What she should be is encouraging children to question what they read every day."

- George Carlin

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