The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers Are the Most Misinformed

[madokie]

Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs.


Editor's note: This is an excerpt from Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality.

In June of 2011, Jon Stewart went on air with Fox News’ Chris Wallace and started a major media controversy over the channel’s misinforming of its viewers. “Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?” Stewart asked Wallace. “The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.”

Stewart’s statement was factually accurate, as we’ll see. The next day, however, the fact-checking site PolitiFact weighed in and rated it “false.”In claiming to check Stewart’s “facts,” PolitiFact ironically committed a serious error—and later, doubly ironically, failed to correct it. How’s that for the power of fact checking?

There probably is a small group of media consumers out there somewhere in the world who are more misinformed, overall, than Fox News viewers. But if you only consider mainstream U.S. television news outlets with major audiences (e.g., numbering in the millions), it really is true that Fox viewers are the most misled based on all the available evidence—especially in areas of political controversy. This will come as little surprise to liberals, perhaps, but the evidence for it—evidence in Stewart’s favor—is pretty overwhelming.

My goal here is to explore the underlying causes for this “Fox News effect”—explaining how this station has brought about a hurricane-like intensification of factual error, misinformation and unsupportable but ideologically charged beliefs on the conservative side of the aisle. First, though, let’s begin by surveying the evidence about how misinformed Fox viewers actually are.

http://www.alternet.org/media/science-fox-news-why-its-viewers-are-most-misinformed?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

[SheilaT]

1. This has been reported more than once.

It's quite scary, even though true.

[sakabatou]

2. As Rachel Maddow has said before, Politifact sometimes bullshits

[pansypoo53219]

3. politi'fakt'

[imthevicar]

4. several of the Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

Rely on Fox "News".
The Obvious-6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

Then their is Billo's war on Christmas-8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

Crony Capitalism and support for Pols of this Ilk. IE the GOP-9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

Let's not forget the Palm trees in Wisconsin, and the OLD,OLD,OLD,OLD,OLD, film of the peasants storming the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg Glenn Beck ran over,and over, and over, again. -10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
I could go on but this will just bore the hell out of you.

http://rense.com/general37/char.htm

[Arkansas Granny]

5. Good read. It explains a lot about people I know who watch Fox.

Once they've made up their minds, facts are useless.

[JohnnyRingo]

20. Easier to move the Pope into atheism.

After reading the entire excerpt, I too took away that debate is futile among hard nosed Fox viewers. I think I already knew that because I never swayed a one of them, but now I see the science behind it.

Many of those I've tried to convince of climate change are otherwise intelligent people. They also, despite their know intellect, believe Obama is a Muslim who was fraudulently elected.

[Scuba]

6. “The heaviest restriction upon the freedom of public opinion is not the official censorship ...

“The heaviest restriction upon the freedom of public opinion is not the official censorship of a press, but the unofficial censorship by a press which exists not so much to express opinion as to manufacture it.”

Dorothy L. Sayers
1893-1957

British writer, essayist, playwright and translator.

[madokie]

7. And the republiCONs told us they were heading down this path

soon after watergate and nixons fall. AEI if I remember correctly decided that if they, repubs, were to get their message out they would have to own the newspapers and control the air waves. Exactly what they've been up to these last 40 plus years.

I may be old but I still remember quiet well and I remember reading about this in the tulsa world newspaper sometime around the middle of '74, shortly after nixon resigned.

I may be mis remembering which Conservative think tank it was but I'm 90% sure it was the AEI.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

30. Poem by Humbert Wolfe, circa 1930

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.

But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.

[Gothmog]

8. Great article

[sammy750]

9. Most misinformed people, those that watch Fox News.

Fox News won a court case in allowing them to LIE, the judge sited the 1st amendment, giving FN the right to lie. If you follow Fox News they hardly ever carry a live event. It all the mis information and lies after the event is over. They can flip the truth into lies in an instant. With Fox News saying they draw the biggest viewership, they must be millions of dummy that watch and approve they method of LYING. No good media person will go on Fox News, they will cut you short if you talk the truth.

[The Wizard]

16. Pox has the largest share of cable news viewers

but only 3% of Americans watch it. Normal people watch a variety of news channels and thus the numbers are dispersed.
What Pox really does is blast Republican propaganda 24/7, in essence giving the GOP free campaign ads. It also provides cover for the other corporate media that is more subtle and sophisticated and harder to detect as propaganda.
Candy Crowley on CNN and Chuck Todd on NBC are paid Republican shills. The now unemployed David Gregory is the same.
We don't get real news from the major media, and as such we go to the Internet.

[Enthusiast]

10. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Thank you, madokie.

[samsingh]

11. do stupid people watch fox news or does fox news make people stupid?

just asking.

[Johonny]

12. The study suggests FOX news does indeed make you stupid

but those people that seek it out and become ill informed do so because they have a predisposition to become ill informed.

problem with Fox News may not solely be that it is actively causing its viewers to be misinformed. It’s very possible that Fox could be imparting misinformation even as politically conservative viewers are also seeking the station out

That is if you believe in the theory. You can see it if you know someone well educate and watch them fall down the FOX news well. They might start out conservative in their world view, but end up gibbering idiots. See Charles Krauthammer's, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks etc.. slow decline into loon. The decline of the right the past 20 years as staggering.

[Jackpine Radical]

31. Yes.

" do stupid people watch fox news or does fox news make people stupid?"

[MisterP]

13. here's Altemeyer's updating of Adorno

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. Possibly because Fox viewers are least likely to get their news anywhere else

there was a recent Pew Foundation survey on this that found that hardcore conservatives distrust most news sources and cite Fox, Limbaugh, Hannity and Glenn Beck as their top news sources. Which means that they prefer an echo chamber. Liberals on the other hand were found most likely to get their news from a variety of sources. See here: http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/

[ffr]

15. Misinformed, but TRAINED TO VOTE

I wish more American voters would take notice without having to be programmed. If they did, we'd have a Democratic supermajority across the country.

[The Wizard]

17. The first thing a cult tells its adherents

is that everyone else is lying. When you bill yourself as fair and balanced you're saying all others are lying. A cult by any other name........

[JohnnyRingo]

19. I've always said....

We democrats are naturally lazy and complacent. We outnumber republicans by a wide margin, but republicans are taught by their conservative fathers to make every election without fail, and to vote for the GOP candidate- even if it's only an election for dog catcher.

By God it better be a republican dog catcher, or the country will go straight to the..uh... dogs.

[JohnnyRingo]

18. I suggest everyone go to the link and read the entire piece.

Though it can be summed up by the last paragraph: "But nevertheless, it took the emergence of a station like Fox News before these tendencies could be fully activated—polarizing America not only over politics, but over reality itself", you may decide it's not worth arguing with your wingnut uncle this Thanksgiving. I now believe such reasoned debate is futile, much akin to trying to talk the Pope out of his belief in God.

I don't often hand out reading assignments, but this excerpt is well worth the time and effort.
Scary stuff if you think about it.

[Arkansas Granny]

21. I agree. The whole piece is worth reading.

[whistler162]

22. And the gullible shall buy the book in

droves.

[reimaginethis]

23. FoxNews gives me a headache

I have no idea how anyone can stomach more than two seconds of that garbage. I suspect FN gives North Korean state television a run for its money in the propaganda department.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. PolitiFact obviously watches FOX "News".

[Prophet 451]

25. This is not news

Altemeyer proved the same thing about ten years ago.

[kairos12]

26. Fox News is the Onion without the funny

[belzabubba333]

27. what's up with politifact

[nxylas]

28. I think it's false equivalence syndrome

I don't think it's so much that Politifact is a right-wing site as that they are so desperate to be seen as unbiased that they are afraid to admit that Republicans and their media lie more than members of the reality-based community. Therefore, they hold people like Jon Stewart to a much stricter standard than the likes of Fox Noise.

[belzabubba333]

29. well they need to stop that ...... eom