FDU Media Study

[spuwho]

After a long screed on another thread about how some news networks make their viewers "dumber" or less informed, I committed to go out and actually read the research attributed to Fairleigh Dickinson University.

I also read a lot of (oh, and there is a lot of those out in the ether) reports, data and feedback to the study results to see how other pollsters, researchers or academics viewed the materials and if they had merit.

Yes, there was much web inches devoted to supporting and to discredit the study results. There was some odd retorts (like from Fox) but very little from other organizations.

I am not a pollster but I do understand statistics, so I found a study like this interesting in concept.

So for what its worth, here is my feedback on the poll, the nature of it and some outstanding questions it raised as I went through the results.

- FDU/Public Mind created a mathematical model of what they considered an "informed" person. Used that as a baseline by which to compare the polls results. Those who polled below the baseline were considered "less informed". Those who polled above it were considered "more informed". My issue here is that this model is not available publicly.  Perhaps I can't find it and I will keep looking for awhile to see how they compiled it. ( I suspect I know how)

- The study only looked at comparing media sources that supplied news. This puts newspapers at the top, but the largest omission is the internet. They list generically "a political blog or newsite". They also aggregated broadcast news into "a national news broadcast".  They also did not list CNBC, which tipped me off to a potential flaw in the survey. ( or a flaw in how "news" in defined)

- The poll did not represent a national audience, but merely a statewide audience, that of New Jersey. The sample was very small (probably due to budget limitations) that has been extrapolated into broader results. Modern pollsters do this all the time as long as the sample represents a national demographic or profile. These results were from a "random" sample, meaning calls were made irregardless of the people being reached. Using this "blind" sample means the pollsters did not know the background of who they were calling. There are benefits and limitations to using blind samples, of which I won't describe here.

- Also another question I had was with regards to how the sample was questioned.  There was no relationship to the viewing or news gathering habits of those queried.  This has a huge impact on how the results would be compiled.  A newspaper is a newspaper all day once it comes off the press, but other new sources are not providing news 24 hours a day. (at least not anymore)  News has been segregated into time slots for non-print/non-web.

- So knowing all this I come back to the negative reaction to Fox News & MSNBC. Why? If Fox/MSNBC/CNN are so bad at informing their viewers why is one rated so high up compared to other sources? So I went back and looked at the share these networks take during their "prime time", when the most people would be watching them.

What I found is that Fox News ratings are highest when there are no news on. They run approximately 4 hours of prime time opinion shows which aren't reporting "news" per se, but rather analyzing and forming commentary on it. MSNBC is roughly the same. CNN at one time used to show all news during prime time, but has begun to follow the Fox model of opinion/analysis of the days events. When looking deeper, Fox News only runs "straight" news at the same time all of the broadcast networks do, between 5-7PM local. (I focus on Fox here, because everyone is targeting them)

I have watched some of the Fox content irregularly during these primetime hours and would wholeheartedly say that there is definitely a dearth of "hard" news. Most of that comes during the 2 hours of when they compete against broadcast.

So, back to the survey results.

I don't think they reflect a great deal of accuracy in how each news source "educates" its listeners. There were no handicaps for public news sources vs commercial sources. Massive aggregation of certain sources and then very specific sources in others. The survey was blind in one state only with a small sample. No differentiation between prime and non prime programming. No separation of news analysis from news reporting.

Personally I would format the study much differently with a different kind of demographic. Arrange a sequester of your sample to watch the 1-2 hours of news programming each day and then prep surveys based on leading news items during the survey period and then assess how much the sample retained or got informed.

[spuwho]

As a side note for all media conspiracy people.

The EVP of Communications at Fox News is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson School of Communications. The same person has a program where he brings FDU communication majors over the Fox News offices in NYC for walk throughs.

I thought that was interesting in light of the press releases.