On 11/21/11 7:25 PM, jps wrote:

Fox News viewers are less informed than people who don't watch any
news, according to a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The poll surveyed New Jersey residents about the uprisings in Egypt
and the Middle East, and where they get their news sources. The study,
which controlled for demographic factors like education and
partisanship, found that "people who watch Fox News are 18-points less
likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government" and
"6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown
their government" compared to those who watch no news.

Overall, 53% of all respondents knew that Egyptians successfully
overthrew Hosni Mubarak and 48% knew that Syrians have yet to
overthrow their government.

Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson,
explained in a statement, "Because of the controls for partisanship,
we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other
groups being more likely to watch Fox News. Rather, the results show
us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people
to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at
all."

This isn't the first study that has found that Fox News viewers more
misinformed in comparison to others. Last year, a study from the
University of Maryland found that Fox News viewers were more likely to
believe false information about politics.


A non-scientific survey of the right-wing viewers of Fox here would
produce similar results.