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| (via Gawker.com) |
A study conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org was released last week and revealed interesting findings about the level of misinformation among news watchers.
In most cases increased exposure to news sources decreased misinformation, but in some cases certain news sources on some issues, higher levels of exposure increased misinformation. The survey respondents were asked twelve political questions. The news sources included news publications, network TV news broadcasts, public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. The daily viewing habits of the respondents for each source varied from never watch, rarely watch, watch once a week, watch two to three times a week, and watch daily.
Most striking of the results was that daily viewers of Fox News were significantly more likely to believe the following:
- most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses
- most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit
- the economy is getting worse
- most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring
- the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts
- their own income taxes have gone up
- the auto bailout only occurred under Obama
- when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it
- it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States
