Early on in my masters program (on my dime, while teaching full time, with two young kids at home and so I was taking just one course per semester) I proposed a thesis on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. My plan was to demonstrate the show's effectiveness bringing rhetorical analysis to the masses and thus recognize it as one of few remaining, accessible, regular contributors to the contemporary Rhetorical Canon.
My thesis advisor at the time liked the idea, but was concerned there wouldn't be enough data to support my theories. I pushed back suggesting I could use ratings, my own surveys as well as a mix of media articles about the show plus academic journal articles about specific examples of rhetorical devices to compile a thorough analysis. At that point, the advisor didn't budge. Five years later, after the election of President Obama, and Daily Show coverage of a 3rd presidential election, drawing viewers who didn't normally tune in to Comedy Central, there was data. I also had a new advisor by that point and since I was approaching the end of my classes, heading into my "thesis semester," I tried again. This time my proposal snuck through thanks in no small part to expanding coverage of surveys like Fairleigh Dickinson University's FDU Poll, which actually began in 2001.
The FDU Poll didn't just ask respondents for their opinions or habits, it also quizzed them on current events, foreign and domestic, then reported findings correlated with the respondents' news consumption habits. Most notably - and this is probably why it gained so much attention heading into the 2012 elections - it reported that folks who only consume cable news, whether this was Fox or MSNBC, were the LEAST informed among news consumers. It went something like this: (Most informed to least informed per self reported viewing habits)
Daily Show, PBS/NPR, Sunday Morning Network Political News Shows
Major network (non-cable) evening news
CNN (average scorers)
Fox and MSNBC (below average scorers/least informed)
...so people who didn't watch any TV news did better on the quiz/were more informed* about current events than people who said they only watch Fox or MSNBC as their news sources.
Over the years, the FDU Poll has drawn both praise and criticism for its methods as well as for its chosen areas of focus, which have included susceptibility to conspiracy theories, integration/segregation, The War On Christmas, Threats to Masculinity and other attention grabbing, hot button topics. Their methods have been questioned and of course, so have their conclusions, but like any effort, they have improved over time and are now considered at least a point from which significant conversations may depart.
One thing that has remained consistent over time is the ranking of who is or isn't informed based on individual preferences for news consumption. Cable news viewers (especially those who say they watch only Fox or MSNBC) remain the least informed, often even less so than folks who watch no TV news. To be fair, the 2017 version of the poll limited to residents of FDU's home state of New Jersey, found that *newspaper readers were the most informed, especially when it came to state and local issues. So don't confuse "non TV viewers" with "people who avoid news entirely."
Polls like this (and FDU isn't the only one) tell us a couple of important things about "the news." One thing they tell us is that both Fox and MSNBC, who by their own admission/biggest selling point is that they willfully, purposefully, as part of their business model, cater to people who don't like what they see on network news, and thus are NOT providing thorough or informative news coverage. They're providing only what their target audience wants to see and hear.
The polls also tell us that the original Fox contention - that network news is biased toward the left - is either completely false or completely irrelevant. (it's funny to hear Fox fans argue that Fox provides "real news" when Fox said from the start it was providing "an alternative" to real news, which later become "fair and balanced.") Countering a perceived bias doesn't make Fox's content legitimate, and when Fox's viewers rank among the least informed of news consumers, there's little question as to the quality or "reality" of Fox's content.
The same can be said of MSNBC, but only after acknowledging that MSNBC simply used Fox's model, only instead of countering the major networks, MSNBC counters Fox. The polls tell us this is a terrible way to get or provide actual news despite both demonstrating that it's still a lucrative business model. Of course it is! ...in entertainment, not news. When providing entertainment, they have to provide what their audience wants to see and hear - what their audience likes to see or hear.
The polls also tell us that major network news does not deserve the bad reputation Fox has convinced so many to believe. It seems to do a much better job of informing its audience than either Fox or MSNBC, consistently, over time. If anything, we've seen the major networks stoop to legitimize ridiculous candidates or platforms giving them a false equivalence to legitimate candidates or platforms as if to counter Fox's false claims. ...as if to provide something their detractors might like.
The other thing the polls tell us is we now know with little doubt that news consumers who choose Fox or MSNBC as their preferred source of news aren't really interested in actual news or being informed. They watch these "news sources" because they like what they see and hear there. That's not the job of the news, or the press at all. It's fine to want to be entertained and to like what you see or hear when you're being entertained, but the news isn't supposed to entertain. Sometimes actual news is unpleasant or uncomfortable. Facts aren't always things we like to hear or see. Sometimes the news tells us things about people we think we like that we don't like knowing about them. As adults, informed adults, we have to live with this fact and we have be able to separate our need to be informed from our desire to be entertained.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: liking what you see and hear is not about being informed, it's about feelings. And we all know what we're supposed to do with our feelings.
Luth
Out
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