Extended exposure to Fox News makes voters stupid, university study finds

reply to post by airspoon

Biased

reply to post by TheWill


The problem with doing that is that you would have to specify that you mean twins who are psychologicaly identical at the begining of the experiment, and that is very very very rare. I really dont think twins would be a great example.
Clones would work better, but I would have thought that the ethical arguments against cloning a trio of persons just for the purpose of exposing a media based attack on the intellect of an entire nation would see your plan locked in congress for longer than the sun will burn for !

What really makes you stupid is not looking at both sides and all sides. Thats why I read both right-wing and left-wing publications and get both sides of the coin; the full picture. Shows you how dumb they are over at Universities.

reply to post by TrueBrit


There are precedents to using genetically identical twins and never mind the other factors...

I would have thought, really, that getting congress to approve strapping someone in front of the television to scientifically determine whether Fox news is bad for mental health would have taken quite a while, anyway.

I suppose correlation shall have to remain the best available data concerning fox-news-associated mind-rot. I'll probably live...

reply to post by Skyfloating

shows you how dumb they are over at universities

You didn't just make a sweeping generalisation based on the bias of a small percentage of students at one institution, did you?

Because that would have been foolish.

People here like to compare Fox 'News' with CNN. This online video documentary clearly demonstrates in detail how and why Fox is extremely biased, and should by no means be considered legitimate news. I would invite readers to present similar material regarding CNN.

reply to post by airspoon


This is called "advocacy research." It is like the "global warming research." The research is created with a political purpose in order to "sceintifically" justify a political solution wanted by the "researchers" and people they support who are in power or who they want to obtain power. In this case, Obama's FCC is trying to gain the justification to erase his political opposition in the news - talk radio and Fox. Radicals can not hold power with free speech and this is why they always move to remove freedom of speech early on in their "revolution" or as the Obamas call it, "change." (See Chavez.) Obama controls the rest of the media.

We have seen this so much in the US, people are rarely fooled by it. Always look for the political "solution" and you will know the ideology behind the fake research.

reply to post by TheWill


You know, Im fairly sure that sitting someone down and forcing them to become dumber is some kind of abuse of human rights. I think the CIA might have a go at it though. They like that sort of thing " Oh well we only infected a few people with life threatening diseases deliberately as an experiment, oh and sexualy transmitted diseases too...... dont forget them! ". Im sure bashing a few IQ points off of someone wouldnt be beyond them.
Again, is it worth the assault on ethics? Surely if we know the truth we can spread it without the sort of scientific proof that ethicaly invalidates our argument lol

Turn them all off.
Somehow I manage to stay informed without even accidentally landing on one of those channels.
Set yourself up some RSS feeds. Do it while paying attention to the sources. and build yourself a good list of assorted new feeds. You control the content..sort of.

A TV station does not make a person stupider, the person is either stupid and gullible or they aren't.

Say a station has a show that says your house is on fire and they have 3 guests on the show that back up the host's assertion most people would check out their own house before running out into the street screaming wouldn't they?

Stupid people just believe what their favorite tv shows tells them without question, the rest of us use reason and logic to figure out if there is any truth to what was just said.

By the way your house is on fire.

reply to post by bphi1908

the person is either stupid and gullible or they aren't.

So where does stupidity or gullibility come from? Is it absolutely all genetic? If not, at what point does one stop developing one's lifetime stupidity or gullibility?

By the way your house is on fire.

Oh, crikey, I knew I shouldn't have left the oven on.

EDIT: NB, see one of my earlier posts where I put forward my reasoning that at least part of intelligence is environmentally derived.

I really do not understand the bashing of Fox News. Can someone give me some real examples of some false reports from them?

reply to post by whatukno



Yeah I'd agree..

But even then O'Reily is more suited to stroking his ego than actually bringing any sense.

Here's a link that people might be interested to read, to the study itself rather than the summaries that focus on the findings related to Fox specifically:

Voters Say Election Full of Misleading and False Information

The study, by the way, didn't just look at people who get their news from Fox, it also asked about network news, CNN, public broadcasting, blogs, etc. Apparently viewers of each were misinformed in specific areas, though the list of items that frequent Fox viewers was wrong about was longer than that of the other sources.

I also note that the summaries don't quite accurately report the questions asked. For instance, the summary reports imply that the question was "will the health care bill increase the deficit" but in fact the question was "Is it your impression that among economists who have estimated the effect of the health reform law on the federal budget deficit over the next ten years, more think it will not increase the deficit, views are evenly divided, or more think it will increase the deficit?" Maybe this seems like a pedantic or trivial distinction, but I think the questions are very different.

reply to post by americandingbat


Now that's ironic... all the talk about the agenda of Fox in mis-relaying information, all the talk about the agenda of Maryland Uni (?) in biasing the study with the intention of spreading misinformation, and now it seems that we've been misinforming ourselves, too.

Thanks for the link, makes it a whole lot more convincing (although still correlation not cause, this time there's a lot of different correlations and slightly less inter-dependent variables) and, funnily, doesn't seem to talk about being intelligent as much as being informed...

Although I'm still curious as to how intelligence correlates with the watching of certain TV shows.

Judge Andrew Napolitano is the ONLY person on fox hat makes a lick of sense. That fox let him near the building is amazing.

cnn and msnbc tow the line just like fox though and in my opinion, you're dumb if you waste you're time watching television in the age of information.

Originally posted by jibeho
I gotta laugh when I read this from the study

YA...

I would have asked how many folks thought;

IRAQ had WMD?

IRAQ attacked us on 9/11?

That the gas prices of 2008 were symbolic of a "natural" un-manipulated market?

That chanting drill baby drill prevents oil related disasters

The Bush's cabinet benefited directly from war, the oil and regions seized as an act of war?

Nazi's were liberals?

That Reagan reduced Government's size, scope and spending habits?

Obama has higher tax rates than Reagan?

That the worst economic crisis in 70 years was caused by over regulation?

The economic melt down was caused by Obama?

That John Boehner Was Paid By Morgan Stanley To Push For TARP ?

That the hippies of the 60's were conservatives trying to maintain segregation?

reply to post by TheWill

So where does stupidity or gullibility come from? Is it absolutely all genetic? If not, at what point does one stop developing one's lifetime stupidity or gullibility?

reply to post by TheWill


Good question that I really don't think I am qualified to answer, but I won't let that stop me. I think it is all genetic. I think being "smart" has more to do with your brain's ability to store and then be able to apply that knowledge quickly and effectively. That ability doesn't come from a tv, it comes from your parents and your own thirst for knowledge and understanding of your place in the universe.

Try this test, put two people in front of a tv, one exceeding smart and the other dumb as rocks. Let them watch the same show and a day or two later quiz them on the show they watched. I'd bet you this is how it will go:

Me: So how did you like the tv show yesterday?

smart guy: quite honestly I found the discussion on the geopolitical situation in the far east.....

me: ok, thanks. Now you stupid guy.

Stupid guy: uuummmmm, what show? oh yeah, there was this dude...

Me: point proven.

reply to post by bphi1908


As much as your study is very interesting, I wasn't saying that TV made people stupid.

What I was saying that people that were brought up by the television rather than their inattentive parents were more likely to be... well, below average.

Example: Mary and Johnny's first day at preschool. Mary has been raised by parents who interact with her frequently, and when her mother's maternity leave ended, made sure that they had found a stimulating day-care centre to keep her occupied during the day. Johnny's parents put plastic sheeting over the sofa and nailed a plank to the front to stop him falling off, before going upstairs to make his baby sisters Juno, Britney, Whitney, Sunshine and Tom (they thought she was a boy at first), and his baby brothers Romeo, Brooklyn, Gordon and Dwain

Teacher: Mary, how would you like me to read to you about dinosaurs?

Mary: Dinosaurs! My mummy has a huge book on dinosaurs, my favourite is Stegosaurus, my mummy says it has a brain the size of a walnut!


Teacher: Johnny, how would you like me to read to you about dinosaurs?

Johnny: (wets himself because it feels nice) wan' ice-creeeem.


Of course, the problem comes in separating upbringing from genetics in these cases - Johnny's parents may be genetically stupid, producing genetically stupid children, or they may have been raised badly, and because that's what they remember, that's what they now do, producing children as thick as they are. The only way to be sure is through adoption studies, where orphaned or unwanted children are cared for by non-parents from a very early age.

From those that I remember (incompletely) I would say that there is a genetic element to most, if not all, behavioural and psychological traits, but a considerable margin depends upon upbringing, too.



That said (at considerable length) your point that smart and stupid adults will remain smart or stupid regardless of what they watch is very well made.

I would point out that long-term viewing habits would be expected to make a greater difference than one-off viewing of a show, freedom of choice would probably have smart people watching shows that made them smarter, and stupid people watching shows that dropped their intelligence to such a level that they could just about dial for pizza and change the channel when something informative came on.

reply to post by airspoon


Here is the best part about this poll...the response from Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente. I wonder if he has ever heard of an ad hominem fallacy?

Fox News senior vice president for news Michael Clemente has responded to the study which found that his network's viewers are more misinformed about American political issues than any other channel. In a statement to the New York Times' Brian Stelter, Clemente disparaged the University of Maryland, where the study was done.

"The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with," Clemente said.

reply to post by airspoon



...
.i mean that's like saying eating too many donuts can make one fat.

Yeah well eating too much of anything sugary can make one fat.

BTW I watched an entire season of Real World one time. I forgot how to do math...But I learned how to pick up chicks at a bar!