Media study reveals effect of spin on US public

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
> Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 14:55:21 +1000
> From: Nathan Cochrane <.au>
> Subject: Media study reveals effect of spin on US public
> To: "Dave Farber (E-mail)" <dave () farber net>
>
> Hi Dave
>
> Please remove my email address
>
> We Report, You Get It Wrong
>     By Jim Lobe
>     Inter Press Services
>     Asia Times
>
>     Friday 03 October 2003
>
>     The more commercial television news you watch, the more wrong you are
> likely to
> be about key elements of the Iraq War and its aftermath, according to a
> major new
> study released in Washington on Thursday.
>
>     And the more you watch the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News channel, in
> particular,
> the more likely it is that your perceptions about the war are wrong, adds
> the report
> by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes
> (PIPA).
>
>     Based on several nationwide surveys it conducted with California-based
> Knowledge
> Networks since June, as well as the results of other polls, PIPA found that
> 48
> percent of the public believe US troops found evidence of close pre-war
> links
> between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist group; 22 percent thought troops
> found
> weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq; and 25 percent believed that
> world public
> opinion favored Washington's going to war with Iraq. All three are
> misperceptions.
>
>     The report, Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War, also found that
> the more
> misperceptions held by the respondent, the more likely it was that s/he both
> supported the war and depended on commercial television for news about it.
>
>     The study is likely to stoke a growing public and professional debate
> over why
> mainstream news media - especially the broadcast media - were not more
> skeptical
> about the Bush administration's pre-war claims, particularly regarding
> Saddam
> Hussein's WMD stockpiles and ties with al-Qaeda.
>
>     "This is a dangerously revealing study," said Marvin Kalb, a former
> television
> correspondent and a senior fellow of the Shorenstein Center on the Press,
> Politics
> and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
>
>     While Kalb said he had some reservations about the specificity of the
> questions
> directed at the respondents, he noted that, "People who have had a strong
> belief
> that there is an unholy alliance between politics and the press now have
> more
> evidence." Fox, in particular, has been accused of pursuing a chauvinistic
> agenda in
> its news coverage despite its motto, "We report, you decide".
>
>     Overall, according to PIPA, 60 percent of the people surveyed held at
> least one
> of the three misperceptions through September. Thirty percent of respondents
> had
> none of those misperceptions.
>
>     Surprisingly, the percentage of people holding the misperceptions rose
> slightly
> over the last three months. In July, for example, polls found that 45
> percent of the
> public believed US forces had found "clear evidence in Iraq that Hussein was
> working
> closely with al-Qaeda". In September, 49 percent believed that.
>
>     Likewise, those who believed troops had found WMD in Iraq jumped from 21
> percent
> in July to 24 percent in September. One in five respondents said they
> believed that
> Iraq had actually used chemical or biological weapons during the war.
>
>     In determining what factors could create the misperceptions, PIPA
> considered a
> number of variables in the data.
>
>     It found a high correlation between respondents with the most
> misperceptions and
> their support for the decision to go to war. Only 23 percent of those who
> held none
> of the three misperceptions supported the war, while 53 percent who held one
> misperception did so. Of those who believe that both WMDs and evidence of
> al-Qaeda
> ties have been found in Iraq and that world opinion backed the United
> States, a
> whopping 86 percent said they supported war.
>
>     More specifically, among those who believed that Washington had found
> clear
> evidence of close ties between Hussein and al-Qaeda, two-thirds held the
> view that
> going to war was the best thing to do. Only 29 percent felt that way among
> those who
> did not believe that such evidence had been found.
>
>     Another factor that correlated closely with misperceptions about the war
> was
> party affiliation, with Republicans substantially "more likely" to hold
> misperceptions than Democrats. But support for Bush himself as expressed by
> whether
> or not the respondent said s/he intended to vote for him in 2004 appeared to
> be an
> even more critical factor.
>
>     The average frequency of misperceptions among respondents who planned to
> vote
> for Bush was 45 percent, while among those who plan to vote for a
> hypothetical
> Democrat candidate, the frequency averaged only 17 percent.
>
>     Asked "Has the US found clear evidence Saddam Hussein was working
> closely with
> al-Qaeda"? 68 percent of Bush supporters replied affirmatively. By contrast,
> two of
> every three Democrat-backers said no.
>
>     But news sources also accounted for major differences in misperceptions,
> according to PIPA, which asked more than 3,300 respondents since May where
> they
> "tended to get most of [their] news''. Eighty percent identified broadcast
> media,
> while 19 percent cited print media.
>
>     Among those who said broadcast media, 30 percent said two or more
> networks; 18
> percent, Fox News; 16 percent, CNN; 24 percent, the three big networks - NBC
> (14
> percent), ABC (11 percent), CBS (9 percent); and three percent, the two
> public
> networks, National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
>
>     For each of the three misperceptions, the study found enormous
> differences
> between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS,
> who held
> the fewest by far.
>
>     Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one
> misperception,
> compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in
> between.
>
>     CBS ranked right behind Fox with a 71 percent score, while CNN and NBC
> tied as
> the best-performing commercial broadcast audience at 55 percent. Forty-seven
> percent
> of print media readers held at least one misperception.
>
>     As to the number of misconceptions held by their audiences, Fox far
> outscored
> all of its rivals. A whopping 45 percent of its viewers believed all three
> misperceptions, while the other commercial networks scored between 12
> percent and 16
> percent. Only nine percent of readers believed all three, while only four
> percent of
> the NPR/PBS audience did.
>
>     PIPA found that political affiliation and news source also compound one
> another.
> Thus, 78 percent of Bush supporters who watch Fox News said they thought the
> United
> States had found evidence of a direct link to al-Qaeda, while 50 percent of
> Bush
> supporters who rely on NPR/PBS thought so.
>
>     Conversely, 48 percent of Fox viewers who said they would support a
> Democrat
> believed that such evidence had been found. But none of the Democrat-backers
> who
> relied on NPR/PBS believed it.
>
>     The study also debunked the notion that misperceptions were due mainly
> to the
> lack of exposure to news.
>
>     Among Bush supporters, those who said they follow the news "very
> closely", were
> found more likely to hold misperceptions. Those Bush supporters, on the
> other hand,
> who say they follow the news "somewhat closely" or "not closely at all" held
> fewer
> misperceptions.
>
>     Conversely, those Democratic supporters who said they did not follow the
> news
> very closely were found to be twice as likely to hold misperceptions as
> those who
> said they did, according to PIPA.

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/