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

I tried about 7 different media stations this morning. I never watch any of them, but was bored, and decided to brush up on what the networks are up to.

MSNBC: Literally had a panel talking about the need for gun control.
Fox: Fox and Friends panel, talking about torture.
CNN: Talking about celebrities.

Others:
CNBC
HLN
etc.
All I remember from some of those is the weather, and an investigative report on a new invention that uses a sort of belt-suspenders to hold up sagging jeans.

This is how f-ing stupid people in America are. I feel sorry for people that believe this is news. If you turn on the 'local' channels, you're guaranteed to be flooded with "feel-good" stories of stuff that doesn't matter, and local news about absolutely nothing. No one ever discusses anything that sways away from the "stay asleep" political mindset of corporate Amerika.

Well, lets take a closer look at the actual purpose of the study. Look at the sponsors for the study and you will see an alterior motive here. Several progressive and socialist (true socialists, not media fabricated ones) funded this study. The same ones that are tying to get the government to ban fox news, and the sames ones that have had thier activities brought into the open by Fox News. Now, do not misunderstand what I am saying, all of the tv news outlets are biased in some way, i think all of them are equal in this. Now, lets break this down a little


Worldpublicopinion.org is responsible for the study.

WorldPublicOpinion.org was initiated by and is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

PIPA is a joint program of the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA) and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), University of Maryland

PIPA's activities have been supported by:

Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Tides Foundation (Van Jones, William Ayers,etc btw, they wrote the stimulus bill)
Ford Foundation
German Marshall Fund of the United States
Compton Foundation
Carnegie Corporation
Benton Foundation
Ben and Jerry's Foundation
University of Maryland Foundation
Circle Foundation
JEHT Foundation
Stanley Foundation
Ploughshares Fund
Calvert Foundation
Secure World Foundation
Oak Foundation
United States Institute of Peace

WPO is made possible by the generous support of:

Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Tides Foundation
Ford Foundation
German Marshall Fund of the United States
Compton Foundation
Carnegie Corporation
Benton Foundation
Ben and Jerry's Foundation
University of Maryland Foundation
Circle Foundation
JEHT Foundation
Stanley Foundation
Ploughshares Fund
Calvert Foundation
Secure World Foundation
Oak Foundation
United States Institute of Peace

Please note the fact that the sponsored list of both organizations are almost identical, as is the Boards of Directors for both organizations. One other thing, most of these organizations are funded by one person, and the they are all close allies with that same person. Any guesses who that person may be? Any takers? Wait for it....
wait for it.... GEORGE SOROS. George Soros only gets criticism from one mainstream media source..... Fox News thats it. He has everyone else on his payroll, including the US government. Do some research on this dude, they call him a pilanthropist, but this peace loving wellspring of charity is soley responsible from singlehandly crashing numerous economies. The dude is evil, period. Compare him to Emperor Palpatine from star wars, they are identical.

edit: This information took me all of 5 minutes to find. If you really think that there is not some alterior motives here then, well you are a sheep. These are the same people that have asked for the Obama administration to ban Fox, which he has attacked them, and offered the Huffington Post as a good source of information, that is just laughable. They also have pushed for an FCC take over of the internet, banning conspiracy theories, and want the fairness doctrine put back into place.

Liberal univ. students?

MSNBC makes people stupid
They need to do a study on that

As soon as the "Fairness Doctrine" was repealed, TV News has ceased to exist. (Perhaps Public Television might be an exception.)
en.wikipedia.org...

In June 1987, Congress had attempted to preempt the FCC decision and codify the Fairness Doctrine,[15] but the legislation was vetoed by President Ronald Reagan. Another attempt to revive the doctrine in 1991 was stopped when President George H.W. Bush threatened another veto.[16]

[sarcasm] I'm sure that "Poppy" Bush's ties to the CIA and Operation Mockingbird had nothing to do with any of this though! [/sarcasm]
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by TheWill


I believe that there are a number of factors which contribute to the results of this study. First of all , there is the problem of habit forming. I would have thought that a considerable collective of the surveyed people, would also have had other compulsions learned over time. Because Fox fluffs the egos of, and panders to the psychological damage done to its viewer base, it is easier to watch if you happen to have the opinions reflected in the programming. This is not only more comfortable for the veiwer, because it does not involve self examination, but actualy reinforces previously held beliefs.
Second of all is the sheer intelligence behind the way the programes are made, and the way a news story is delivered. The people behind the scenes know that in order to make thier veiwer base feel good about being themselves and having thier veiws, they have to spin the articles a certain way, in order to show the most pleasing aspects of the veiwer bases attitudes. When the veiwer sees his veiw being reflected in the words a newsreader uses to attack his guest, or support a riduclous position, he feels good about himself, his brain releases feel good chemicals, and the veiwers attitude is again reinforced, and his addiction to the network becomes stronger.
The third aspect which comes to play on this subject is of addiction. I like a particular brand of rum. Once I had that one, nothing else will do (incidentaly , its called Sailor Jerry's and its bloody marvelous, a jolly good drop). Its the same with news. Having exposed themselves to the neurochemical effect of having thier right wing propegandist fear based nonsense views announced on air as fact, and every article spun to suit thier mind set, a Fox News veiwer may decide to see what the other networks are saying. Upon turning on a different network, they may find that it doesnt go as far as Fox does toward thier end of the idiot meter. While not repulsive to the Fox veiwer, it may seem a little wishy washy. They may decide to continue to find what else might be out there. Upon comming across a genuine news outlet, they will be appalled and outraged , because the news reader might not be talking the same "good sense" they are used to . What a buzzkill !!! Thinking , as they probably do, that only newsreaders who aggree with them are telling the truth, they will hurry back to Fox for thier dose of media crack, and slowly but surely the little bead of drool at the corner of thier slack jawed open mouthed expression, will turn into a drop, and then a torrent.
The secret , to watching the news, is to watch ALL the news. The problem comes when there are no media outlets that arent controled by large corperate interests , and right wing propegandists. In Britain the BBC have a reputation for impartiality , and although I watch the BBC news every lunch hour, I do so under no false impression about its worth as an outlet for unbiased information. The bias is more sublte to be sure, but its there , in the tone of voice, the way a question is asked, and the general attitude of the newscaster. Again, its subtle but its there. In order to counter act that effect on my mind, I come to places like this, and get my news from all over the web. I look at left and right wing veiws, and centrist views. I check out the current activities of the same people from maybe four or five different media veiw points before even thinking about making up my mind. Either that , or I have made up my mind on a subject before there is even news about it , but monitor the news anyway so that I do not become culturaly retarded.
The forth factor here is that a large number of people are dumb as sticks, no matter wether you are in the USA , Russia, the UK or Japan, Pakistan, India , China... there are some really idiot people out there. They will be drawn to media which doesnt make them feel to dumb. Thats a simple fact. People who are just lacking in even the rudimentary intelligence required to name and measure a cucumber for instance, are going to be drawn to a news outlet which caters for people who cant pass basic science, ethics, and social studies classes. They are not going to buy a membership to the Smithsonian visitors club, no more than a British numbnut is going to want to visit the natural history museum every month to keep up on the latest from the archaeological digs around the nation. They are going to want to know how to cram more calories into thier fat dumb useless bodies, and how to cram thier minds with thoughts which lead to zero growth, because its easier, and life according to idiot should be easy.
Its all a fallacy though. Life should be hard, its what makes us aware that we are alive. Struggle improves mental accuity , it does not stunt it. The people who watch avidly this mind bending news show, do so not because they want to be informed, and they are not being mislead. They are specificaly watching it BECAUSE it makes them dumber, and to them ignorance is BLISS. They are the direct opposite of everyone who takes denying ignorance seriously . Some of them are only watching Fox, because otherwise they would realise that every lesson they ever learned from thier parents about respect for thier nation was a lie, that every word about obeying your betters, and always keeping the law, is bogus, and that thier entire lives, and the premise on which they base thier characters has been based on a toxic, dangerous mess of non thought, designed to make them nothing but slaves to little bits of paper with numbers on them. Either that or they have seen so much of the truth that they cannot handle it anymore.
No matter the reason though, these people, and the media outlets who feed thier psychological disorders, are dangerous. They are dangerous, because they vote, and they vote in a nation which has a nuclear arsenal, and has had at least one slack jawed drooling halfwit as president in the last ten years already, and is garun-damn-teed to have another one at some point. Halfwits plus nukes equals bad. I couldnt make that any simpler now could I ?

reply to post by airspoon
This is what pisses me off about claims we live in a democracy. Democracies depend on an 'informed electorate' and yet the machinery of the democratic system is geared to keeping them under-informed.

Fox news and anything else owned by Murdoch is used to correct the course of politics and society purely to maximise his influence and thereby increase his business profits. He wants lower taxes for the rich and a dumbed-down public feeding their money and votes into the Murdoch machine like a Vegas slot machine.

Politicians court him to get access to his influence on the public and sacrifice one increment after another of power/influence to him. He can swing votes for any government promising to give him tax breaks.

I think it would be more accurate to state that "extended exposure to Fox News makes voters STUPIDER." In my personal opinion, you gotta be pretty stupid to believe anything on Fox News to begin with.

You know what they say; "Birds of a feather, flock together." Who knows, maybe the end result of Fox News will be the re-emergence of an extinct species, namely the Dodo birds.

really, this study was put out to do a little damage control for George Soros. Look at the big picture. Soros has an agenda, he doesn't hide it. He does sugar coat it a little, but all he does is throw money at a multitude of foundations and organizations to further his agenda for him. Fox news, in particular a couple of thier on air personalities have recently went on a campaign to out the guy. So he in turn has went as far as calling his little worker bee in the White House and instructed him to discredit Fox ( like any of the news outlets really needed to be discredited heh) So, Obama went about his little war against fox, then he started issuing marching orders to media matters, center for american progress, Seiu, afl-cio, the tides foundation, Acorn, the Apollo Alliance, the organizations responsible for this so called study. If you argu that this news network is better then this one, and how fox is so corrupt, well, yo may be correct, but at the same time, you are playing right into his plan. look at the big picture and follow the money.

reply to post by airspoon


No I am not joking. FOX News is pushing an agenda, and yes, so are all the other major news organizations.

While I don't agree with O'Riley's message most of the time, I often have a hard time debunking what he is saying because he generally relies a lot on actual facts. His guests on the other hand tend to push the FOX agenda, which he seems to be obligated to allow them.

Each network tends to have the following people on the staff.

You have your O'Riley's your Cooper's, your Olbermann's, who use facts in order to push the overall agenda of the network.

Then you got the lesser minions of the networks who either gather information and spin it for that specific network's agenda. This is your FOX and Friends, American Morning, and whatever MSNBC has (I don't know because I never watch MSNBC)

Each network has a puppet opposition person on staff, who is weak, stupid, and barely informed who they purposely trot out so that the other commentators can trash on them, and make the opposition look bad.

FOX has Geraldo Rivera, and CNN Used to have Lou Dobbs. Lou, was either forced out, or quit on his own,.

Then the networks have the brain dead zombie. For FOX, this is of course Glenn Beck, for CNN this used to be Larry King. CNN is bringing a new zombie to replace Larry King this January, who knows what this moron will bring.

Then, they have their political spin show, for CNN this is Parker/Spitzer FOX has Hannity.

MSNBC like I said I don't watch so I don't know how Rachel Maddow fits into everything but she tends to be a lot like Hannity with a liberal bias.

There are a lot more commentators for all three networks, but that is how in my mind it basically works.

reply to post by SyphonX

I tried about 7 different media stations this morning. I never watch any of them, but was bored, and decided to brush up on what the networks are up to....

THANKS, Now I can ignore TV for another ten years and I didn't have to waste my time checking it out

I quit looking at the boob tube in 1975 and have never missed it. That "STUDY" makes me wonder exactly how idiotic or Universities are becoming. Talk about PROPAGANDA!

I loved the list of questions that could be answered in any number of ways and easily backed up.

For example have taxes "increased" the answer is not yes but HECK YES!

Why? Because the money supply was doubled in the spring of 2009 effectively halving our wages over the long term. Without "raising" taxes people will be shoved into much higher tax brackets if their wages are going to reflect the increase in money supply and the increase in prices that goes with it.

I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop when that increase in the money supply hits the economy.

no,people who watch fox news are stupid by default

reply to post by airspoon


true... the article is biased but so is Faux News...

You may have seen the leaked an e-mail from Bill Sammon, the Washington managing editor of Fox News.

What the E-Mail Said Here's the text of Sammon's e-mail, as reported by Media Matters:

Subject: friendly reminder: let's not slip back into calling it the "public option"

1) Please use the term "government-run health insurance" or, when brevity is a concern, "government option," whenever possible.
2) When it is necessary to use the term "public option" (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation's lexicon), use the qualifier "so-called," as in "the so-called public option."
3) Here's another way to phrase it: "The public option, which is the government-run plan."
4) When newsmakers and sources use the term "public option" in our stories, there's not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.

Journalistic integrity is almost non-existent at Fox... I thought everyone knew this.... maybe not. Anyone who thinks Fox news is anything but info-tainment needs to have their head checked or stop eating Lead paint chips.

Originally posted by airspoon
reply to post by eazyriderl_l

 

I think that just proves the point that it isn't only FOX News which is dumbing people down.

--airspoon

All television stations dumb you down. The FOX News just makes it entertaining!

I thought this article was ridiculously hilarious when I read it yesterday.

Grrrrrr! Double post!

A University of Maryland study (PDF) published earlier this month found that people in the survey who had the most exposure to Fox News were more likely to believe falsehoods and rumors about national and world affairs

1 - State Universities usually lean far left. So they picked on FOX.
2 - If they had done a proper study they would have found MSNBC and CNN to make people stupid too.
3 - Gotta' ask ... the study says 'believe falsehoods and rumors' .... so these are falsehoods and rumors according to who? The left wing university?

This is so stupid.

Not that I don't agree with your thread title, OP, but it makes the classic mistake of attributing causation to a correlational observation. Just sayin'

reply to post by TrueBrit


Very good (+ long) reply that largely agreed with my (unstated, I think) views on the viewers of such programmes as Fox news, as well as the mental capacity of the Bush that probably should have been burned... which may explain why I feel that it was a good post...

I would like to note that when I wrote "impartial imparting", I mean to write "partial imparting", but the "im" of the second word decide that it was time to settle down and have a family...

Anyway, yes, the media is very clever at satisfying and narrowing the views of its demographic, and yes keeping people ignorant (through the narrowing of their views) is a bad thing, but my point remains that while we can provide a great many well reasoned explanations as to how news stations can - and do - guide the opinions of their viewers, the "exposure to Fox news makes voters stupid" cannot be demonstrated simply through the correlation between stupidity and viewing habits: the two are not independent but interdependent, and so a correlation is, in fact, meaningless.

As such, I am all for forcing one identical twin to watch FOX news all day, all night, for ten years, the other to have free access to all channels for the same period, and then testing their respective IQs at the end. Then we will have proper statistical backing to say that Fox news decreases intelligence.

Actually, make it triplets and ban the third from television altogether.

reply to post by whatukno


When I asked if you were joking, I was only talking about O'Reilly. Of course FOX News is pushing an agenda, as is the rest of the mainstream media and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone here who would think otherwise. Well, maybe one or two.

Furthermore, what you are talking about is "spin". Pundits put "spin" on facts, though they certainly push non-truths or fallacies too, O'Reilly included. In fact, the whole idea behind punditry (pundits being your Becks, Olbermanns, O'Reillys, Napolitanos, Coopers, etc) is for the viewers or followers to delegate their critical self thinking to this TV personality. This is why I think that punditry is one of the most dangerous things to preservation of freedom.

People start to trust one pundit over another and all of the sudden, whatever this pundit says, is golden. They then rely on this pundit for their world-view. This is the reason ans method, in my studied opinion, in which the MSM "dumbs down" their audiences. Punditry actually requires that the viewer cede these self critical thinking skills over to the pundit, thus network, ultimately whatever influences drive that netwrok.


--airspoon

reply to post by SM2


You get a star from me for that post. I've studied politics for years and have found one universal truth: Everyone has an agenda. If you take the time, as you did, SM2, to follow the money trail, then you will understand that person or persons' agenda. Kudos.

I watch Fox. I also watch MSNBC and CBS. Regardless, this post reminded me of an incident from years ago:

About 19 years ago I attended my 10 year high school reunion. I ran into a good friend who worked for an NBC affiliate out of New York City. He was telling me about a meeting he was involved in that included the anchors for all the major news outlets. He mentioned Dan Rather and Peter Jennings as well as others. The meeting had to do with the coverage of Bill Clinton during his candidacy for president. They had information about an affair with Gennifer Flowers and were discussing as what to do with the information and leads they had.

It was decided, collectively, that none of them would persue or give any airtime to the story in the hopes that the story would just "die away" and Clinton would get elected. They all knew what a sex scandal could do to a candidate, especially after the Gary Hart affair came to light in the 1988 election.

I was astounded, at that time, that rival news agencies would collaborate on any story, let alone one that was as scandalous as this one. I was under the impression that they all try to compete with each other and, in essence, try to scoop the other channel with news that no one else has. I was wrong.

My point is that so much of what you see on the major networks, though advertised as "news", is actually biased, filtered, censored and/or simply omitted. This collaboration and censoring was practiced then and I have absolutely no doubt that it is practiced today. Generally speaking, one source for anything is more often than not, a bad idea. I thank God for not only this site, but for the blogs and websites and the plethora of other information sources out there.