HW: Tour Shirts

[M Holmes]

Eric Siegerman writes:

> On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 12:12:11PM +0100, M Holmes wrote:
> > people
> > reading tabloids are quite simply not so stupid that they can't see
> > through all the cant telling them how to vote.
>
> I'd be interested in your reaction to this poll:
>     http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Media_10_02_03_Press.pdf
>
> Different medium (TV); different country (USA); same issue.  The
> poll examined the frequency with which its subjects hold three
> specific misperceptions about the Iraq situation, and found that
> 80% of people whose primary news source is Fox TV hold at least
> one of the misperceptions -- dramatically more than do people
> whose news comes from NPR/PBS (public radio/television; 23%),
> print media (47%), or CNN (55%).
>
> In other words, in practice, Fox watchers *don't* "see through
> the cant"

Note the "...telling them how to vote" part of my statement.  People can
spot when they're being told how to vote because they know that some
newspapers have an axe to grind on that score.  On the other hand, most
people aren't very knowledgeable on foreign policy, and in the US
certainly, there's a famous lack of knowledge on many people's part
regarding history and geography of places outside of the US.  Add in a
general lack of interest in Iraq outside of "will these foreign wallahs
bomb my local garden centre?" and pretty much anyone who wants to
"inform" them could very easily bias their viewpoint.

I bet I could find three misperceptions of Scotland out of any given
demographic of yanks if I were given the research budget. For example in
a recent poll it seems that one third of Americans believe there's a
haggis hunting season here.

This is of course untrue: we're allowed to take haggis at any time of
the year. They're a bugger to catch outside of mating season though.

Thanks for posting those interesting links.

FoFP