This
press release just landed in my inbox. It looks like they've proven TV is dumbed down:
STUDY: POST-9/11 TV NEWS DROVE LIBERALS TOWARD A HARDER LINE
MADISON - Liberals who gleaned most of their news from television in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks increased their support for expanded police powers, bringing them closer in line with the opinions of conservatives, a study by a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher shows.
In contrast, heavy newspaper reading by liberals was related to lower levels of support for expanded police powers and for limits on privacy and freedom of information, basically reinforcing the differences between liberals and conservatives, says Dietram Scheufele, a UW-Madison journalism professor who conducted the study.
More after these messages.
I won't rehash the numbers here, but I'd encourage you to click the link above and read the whole report. Couple more snippets (emphasis added):
The study, soon to be published in the journal Mass Communications & Society, is based on a survey of nearly 800 residents of Tompkins County, N.Y., in the fall of 2001, shortly after the attacks. Its results have been validated by two subsequent national surveys. ...
Newspaper reading tended to reinforce partisan leanings, partly because it is more selective, readers have more options and seek out their own viewpoints," Scheufele says. "By contrast, TV coverage is very linear, doesn't offer any choice and was more image driven. You saw the plane hitting the building time and time again."
Scheufele says post-9/11 television coverage quickly switched to war themes, such as CNN's "America's New War," MSNBC's "America on Alert" and Fox News' "War on Terror."
In addition to repeated images of the terror attacks, Scheufele says television news coverage emphasized flag-waving ceremonies, religious services and celebrity telethons.
"It wasn't just a Fox News phenomenon. It was across all of the TV coverage," says Scheufele, who was the lead investigator on the project. His associates were Matthew Nisbet, an assistant professor at The Ohio State University, and Ronald Ostman, a professor at Cornell University.
If his research offers a lesson, Scheufele says, it is that citizens need to have a varied diet of news from a variety of sources and viewpoints.
"Newspapers have been on the decline," Scheufele notes. "But this is a very strong argument for keeping newspapers alive. They provide more in-depth and two-sided coverage. Results like these are one of the strongest arguments why newspapers are needed."
You can also read the
full study.
So. Liberal media? Yeah. Right.