Shocking Things Fox News Viewers Believe

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.freewoodpost.com/2011/09/16/shocking-things-fox-news-viewers-believe/

For years the left-wing has been saying that Fox News viewers are “uneducated” or “misinformed”, but now a study has come out that might confirm those suspicions.

According to a new survey of Fox News viewers by Reuters, this is what Fox News viewers believe:

67% Believe Barack Obama’s name sounds suspicious.

45% Believe that homosexuals are polygamists

2% Believe that science is more important than faith

90% Believe that all of the Founding Fathers were born in the United States of America, even though it had not yet been created when the Founding Fathers were born.

56% Believe Sarah Palin went to an Ivy League Law school.

99% of Fox News viewers who were Medicare recipients said they opposed “socialized medicine.”

94% Believe Reagan lowered the National Debt.

More at the link --

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. You do know this is satire?

The sad thing is that at least some of this is believable. It's getting harder to distinguish satire from reality these days.

[Initech]

5. I know - it's satire but none of it would surprise me if real.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Funny, but not really an authentic article; it's satire.

Posted yesterday, the posting member took a beating for not realizing it.

Just a heads-up!

:hi:

[napoleon_in_rags]

3. Somebody rec this down for me.

This article looked authentic on the first few lines, then I read on...But it was too late, I rec'd it up. The OP doesn't make it clear that its satire.

[The Wielding Truth]

4. Satire? Art meet life.Hello a very close facsimile.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Confirmation bias strikes again.

We believe Fox viewers are idiots and we look for confirmation that this is true. So we don't recognize that a piece about the idiocy of Fox viewers is satire.

It has been established as a matter of fact that Fox viewers are less well-informed than people who listen to NPR, for example. Who needs satire?

[ThatPoetGuy]

7. Or did you expect to find confirmation bias,

so you found it? :)

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Well, there is that.

You can never defeat yourself, I guess. :)

[provis99]

9. no, it's more like Poe's Law than confirmation bias.

it truly is difficult to distinguish real Fox News viewer opinions from parody and satire.

Here is a real survey of Fox News viewers. It reflects the same stupidity found in the satire piece.
http://www.alternet.org/story/149193/study_confirms_that_fox_news_makes_you_stupid/

If you didn't know which survey was real, and which one was satire, you've got Poe's Law.

[OnyxCollie]

10. Actually, it's not that the viewers are less well-informed,

it's that regardless of how informed they are, what they are being informed with is propaganda.

MISPERCEPTIONS, THE MEDIA AND THE IRAQ WAR
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/oct03/IraqMedia_Oct03_rpt.pdf

Misperceptions According to Level of Attention to News

While it would seem that misperceptions are derived from a failure to pay attention to the news, overall, those who pay greater attention to the news are no less likely to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media, and to some extent those who primarily watch CNN, have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention.

It would seem natural to assume that misperceptions are due to a failure to pay attention to news and that those who have greater exposure to news would have fewer misperceptions. This was indeed the case with those primarily get their news from print media. However, for most media outlets, increased attention did not reduce the likelihood of misperceptions. Most striking, in the case of those who primarily watched Fox News, greater attention to news modestly increases the likelihood of misperceptions.

All respondents were asked: “How closely are you following the news about the situation in Iraq now?” For the summer as a whole (June, July, August-September), 56% said they were following very (13%) or somewhat (43%) closely, while 43% said they were following the situation not very closely (29%) or not closely at all (14%).