Feb. 15, 2012 - A major new national University of Delaware survey reveals that Fox News Channel viewers know less about the Occupy Wall Street protests than consumers of other media sources, and hold particularly negative views about the protests.
The January 18-25, 2012, survey measured Americans' perceptions of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The results show Fox News viewers stand out for their lack of knowledge about Occupy Wall Street's central message.
Among Fox News viewers, only 56 percent correctly identified the protesters' main message as "too few people control the majority of the nation's wealth and power." The rest either incorrectly said that protesters' main message was "there is too much regulation on business and industry" or did not answer the question. Consumers of other media sources included in the survey were more likely to know the right answer.
Fox News viewers, despite their relative lack of knowledge, maintained negative opinions about the protests. Fox viewers were more likely than consumers of other outlets to say they disagreed with the protesters.
Dannagal Young, assistant professor of communication, said "Anytime you give people an opportunity to enter an opinion echo chamber (like Fox News or MSNBC), their pre-existing opinions are only going to get stronger. The real danger comes when these polarizing opinions are based on inaccurate - or not enough - information."
She added, "These results should quiet critics who argue that satirists like Stewart and Colbert are trivializing politics. The fact that their viewers hold strong positive opinions of the Occupy Wall Street protests and are the most informed regarding the protesters' main message shows that satire can be an important form of political information.
Paul Brewer, associate director for research of the Center for Political Communication, said, "Given that the issues raised by the Occupy Wall Street movement could play a key role in this year's presidential election campaign, it's interesting that Americans consuming a wide range of media sources tend to be sympathetic to the movement. It's also striking how the audience that's the biggest exception – Fox News viewers – is also the least informed about the movement."
Police behavior
The University of Delaware research also reveals that a majority of Americans – with the exception of Fox News and talk radio consumers – said police used "excessive force" against the protesters. While 55 percent of the public as a whole said police used "excessive force," only 45 percent of Fox News viewers held that view
Protestor behavior
A majority of talk radio (60.7 percent) and Fox News (56 percent) consumers said Occupy Wall Street protesters were "out of line." Thirty nine percent of the full national sample expressed that sentiment.
Freedom of Assembly
Almost one third (31 percent) of Fox News viewers said Occupy Wall Street protesters "should not be allowed to protest in public places." Less than a quarter of the full sample agreed.
Ralph Begleiter, director of the Center for Political Communication, said, "Our researchers found that Americans object to the Occupy movement's right to protest in public places, despite the fact that freedom of assembly was written into the Bill of Rights by the founding fathers of our country. This finding is consistent, however, with past studies, which have also found that many Americans today would not support everything in the Constitution."
Analysis
The differences between Fox News viewers and the rest of the public in this survey were statistically substantial, even after taking into account the distinctive demographic and political makeup of the Fox News audience. A consistent finding of the study was that viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were on opposite ends of the spectrum from Fox News viewers on the questions asked by the researchers.
The study's finding that Fox News viewers were relatively uninformed echoes previous national surveys. A 2003 University of Maryland Program on International Policy Attitudes survey showed that Fox News viewers were more likely than consumers of other media to be misinformed regarding the Iraq War. Another University of Maryland survey after the 2010 mid-term election reached similar conclusions about a wider range of issues.
About the study
The study was conducted by Dannagal Young, assistant professor of communication, and Paul Brewer, professor of communication. The Occupy Wall Street Protest research was funded by the University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication and the UNIDEL Foundation.
By submitting a comment you consent to our rules. You must use your real first and last name, not a nickname or alias. A comment here is just like a letter to the editor or a post on Facebook. Thank you.
