Americans Flunk Simple 3-Question Political Survey

[Dimmauk]

Americans Flunk Simple 3-Question Political Survey

LiveScience Staff

LiveScience.com Wed Oct 15, 5:25 PM ET

Some news audiences are more politically savvy than others, according to a new poll, with readers of The New Yorker and similar high-brow magazines being the most knowledgeable.

The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the political knowledge of 3,612 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to name the controlling party of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. secretary of state and Great Britain's prime minister.

Overall, just 18 percent of participants answered all three questions correctly.

More than 50 percent of Americans knew that the Democrats have a majority in the House, while 42 percent could identify the secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice). Less than 30 percent could name the prime minister of Great Britain (Gordon Brown).

Perfect scores

The best-informed news audiences crossed the ideological spectrum. Nearly half of regular readers of The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine answered all three political knowledge questions correctly.

A perfect score was obtained by 44 percent of regular listeners of National Public Radio (NPR), 43 percent of regular viewers of MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and 42 percent of the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" audience. Thirty-four percent of "The Colbert Report" audience and 30 percent of "The Daily Show" audience got all three questions correct.

While most news audiences knew that Democrats have a majority in the House, participants struggled to correctly name the current British prime minister.

Just four news audiences had a majority who correctly identified Gordon, including regular readers of The New Yorker and similar magazines such as The Atlantic, regular NPR listeners, regular readers of political magazines, such as The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, and regular viewers of "Hardball."

Just 44 percent of BBC viewers identified the prime minister correctly.

Here's a detailed breakdown of the percentage of individuals answering each of the three questions correctly from the different news audiences:

* The New Yorker/Atlantic: 71 percent (correctly identified Democrats as the majority in the House), 71 percent (correctly identified Condeleeza Rice), 59 percent (correctly identified Gordon Brown)
* NPR: 73 percent, 72 percent, 57percent
* Hannity & Colmes: 84 percent, 73 percent, 49 percent
* Rush Limbaugh: 83 percent, 71 percent, 41 percent
* Colbert Report: 73 percent, 65 percent, 49 percent
* Daily Show: 65 percent, 48 percent, 36 percent
* NewsHour: 66 percent, 52 percent, 47 percent
* O'Reilly Factor: 70 percent, 60 percent, 41 percent
* C-SPAN: 63 percent, 59 percent, 35 percent
* Letterman/Leno: 51 percent, 42 percent, 31 percent
* CNN: 59 percent, 48 percent, 29 percent
* National Enquirer: 44 percent, 32 percent, 22 percent

Education factor

In general, well-educated news audiences scored high on political knowledge. For instance, 54 percent of the regular readers of publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine are college graduates, as are 54 percent of regular NPR listeners.

However, several news audiences with relatively low proportions of college graduates also scored well on the news quiz. Just 31 percent of regular "Hannity & Colmes" viewers are college graduates. Even still, 42 percent Hannity viewers got perfect scores on the political knowledge quiz, compared with 44 percent of NPR listeners.

Nearly 40 percent of the regular audience of the news parody "The Colbert Report" are college graduates, compared with 30 percent of "The Daily Show" viewers. Both shows have younger audiences than other TV news sources, with less than a quarter of Colbert and Daily Show viewers over the age of 50, compared with more than half of "Hardball" and "Hannity & Colmes" viewers being 50 and older.

[Tyche]

I'll be honest, I wouldn't have gotten the British PM

[Zosi]

I'm more amazed that 17% of Limbaugh's listeners couldn't identify the majority party in the House. He talks shit about Reid (majority leader), Pelosi (speaker) and the Democrat-controlled house in general every 4 seconds.

Personally, I got all three, but I also listen to about 5-6 hours of BBC World Service radio every day at work. I watch zero television news, and mostly read regional newspapers rather than stuff like the WSJ or NYT.

[geno]

I actually blanked on Rice's name for a minute. I'm blaming just waking up. Anyways, I eventually remembered it (without looking at the answers!) and got all three right. Regular viewer of like 3 or 4 of the shows listed.

[Demosthenes11]

bring back tony blair ;;

[Kuya]

Browwwwwwwwwwwwwn.

[Woozie]

bring back tony blair ;;

lol, when I read this I was like "Tony Blair...wait, Gordon who!?"

[Correction]

Why is Britain's police-state prick of a PM more relevant political knowledge than any of the thousands of other questions that could have been asked to gauge someone's political IQ?

[Shuemue]

I didn't know who had the majority, did know that rice chick, and obviously knew the PM

And Correction, our police are fairly decent imo, apart from the racist minority

[Correction]

Police state == surveillance state. I hear you can't take two steps in public without being recorded on a CCTV camera somewhere in London.

Not that the cops aren't complete dicks, either: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/04...s-declare.html

[Aerin]

I'll be honest, I wouldn't have gotten the British PM

Same. Tony Blair was always all over the news with Bush. But I haven't heard much if anything about Brown.

[Zhais]

I don't know the answer to any three of those questions >.> I don't pay attention to politics nonsoever

[ZarakiKujata]

In High School a friend of mine and I did a survey and then paper proposing that 16 year olds get the right to vote, anyways some of the more interesting answers we got for our more challenging survey was like 13 to 50 judges on the Supreme Court, people not being able to name how many states there were, how many senators CT had, how many senators TX had etc. What made it even funnier was that some of the more amusingly clueless answers came from a 1 block radius of the Yale University campus as well as on the campus itself.

[Dimmauk]

In High School a friend of mine and I did a survey and then paper proposing that 16 year olds get the right to vote, anyways some of the more interesting answers we got for our more challenging survey was like 13 to 50 judges on the Supreme Court, people not being able to name how many states there were, how many senators CT had, how many senators TX had etc. What made it even funnier was that some of the more amusingly clueless answers came from a 1 block radius of the Yale University campus as well as on the campus itself.

Get those kids some Vouchers, and they will be fine.

[archibaldcrane]

I've barely heard Gordon Brown's name, and I feel like I'm pretty up to date politically. We only hear about England here in America when they are having to defend their position to support Bush and the Iraq War.

[geno]

Funny enough, despite its poor showing on the list, I actually remembered Brown's name from a Daily Show episode when he had his first meeting with Bush.

[guartz]

Why is Britain's police-state prick of a PM more relevant political knowledge than any of the thousands of other questions that could have been asked to gauge someone's political IQ?

we don't see eye to eye almost all the time, but I completely agree.

[Zosi]

I've barely heard Gordon Brown's name, and I feel like I'm pretty up to date politically. We only hear about England here in America when they are having to defend their position to support Bush and the Iraq War.

Even on the BBC, he comes up pretty rarely compared to how often Blair made headlines. He's a somewhat reserved guy, he doesn't appear to like publicity. Contrast that with Blair, who was pretty much a media whore for his decade as Prime Minister.

[Zalius]

a. nobody really with an attention span that honestly is working towards their life will typically give a shit who c-rice is. yea, it effects them, but the exposure just isn't there. there aren't many average joes that decide to turn on cnn and get political because its boring as all dick and very very unappealing, and the media doesn't really like to cover this sort of stuff unless it involves a scandal.

b. a lot of people probably hear about whos in control of the house right after elections, but after that nobody really cares. the only people that do are (usually) either activists or extremely involved in politics/political science, which most people don't like to trouble themselves with because half of the time it's a huge headache and the other half is just boring as dick. most people with party affiliations picked them because of either their parents or their direct environment and dont actually feel totally committed to the party unless theyre one of the aforementioned types of people. average joe does not give a shit that there are 61, 82, 48, etc etc etc etc % of <insert party here> in office. fuck that shit, in the words of katt williams, we got bills and shit.

c. hu is teh high chieftain of teh mukimukidaki tribe in southwest africa???????????? who the fuck gives a shit who the prime minister of great britain is until he does stuff that direct involves the people that you are interviewing? if you want me to pick between watching house and some shit involving the PM of gb, fuck yea im watchin house. if i need to know his name, i'll know it. i can't think of a time in my life where i've been like "MAN FUCK I REALLY WISH I KNEW WHO THE PM OF GB IS HOLY SHIT." you want to know why i cant think of a time? cause i HAVENT mother fucker. the only time id ever really really care is if i was being asked a dumb survey question and didnt want to look stupid. do you honestly think a good % of the population of GB knows who the president before george bush was? russia? latvia? HOLY SHIT NOBODY CARES OMG

[zimzy]

yay 100%

seriously not hard questions