Obama, McCain, the media and the voting public
September 16th, 2008 at 07:33am Pat Cunningham
This little blog does all right in terms of traffic and readership, but I’m not so foolish as to think its net effect on the world of politics is much above zero.
Applesauce is a microscopic speck in a media universe of countless millions of images, words and voices. No matter its strongly partisan slant, it probably changes few, if any, minds among its readers. Its mostly entertainment for those who come here from the left and right to argue among themselves and with the host. Never once has anybody said: By God, you’re right about that; I never considered the points you’ve made here. Nor has any commenter here said that to another.
At best, this blog is merely a low-power electronic stimulus for the brains of a comparative handful of political junkies. I like to think of it as fun — and the regular visitors seem to enjoy themselves — but I don’t kid myself that it’s of any great importance.
Having said all this, I also recognize that Applesauce is not unlike political media in general. We’re all part of the noise. As the political media multiply in numbers, the potential for meaningful impact diminishes amid a cacophony of conflicting messages.
These media play by rules that are constantly changing or that they mostly make up themselves. I say things here that I could never have said in a newspaper in my early years in the business. Some of what I say here would have been a sensation, if not a scandal, not so long ago. Today, it’s mild in comparison with what certain others are saying.
Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly say things on cable television that never would have passed muster with network executives less than a generation ago. They’re part of a phenomenon that has diminished the audience and influence of the three major nightly newscasts that ruled the airwaves for more than 40 years. Yet, on any given night, all but a tiny slice of the American public is paying no attention whatever to Olbermann or O’Reilly. And even at that, they’re preaching mostly to their respective choirs.
We’re all part of what futurist Alvin Toffler once called “demassification of the media.” And we’re all contributing to a media fog that is transforming, for better or worse, the way we do politics and almost everything else in this country and this world. The influences in this regard include every form of media, electronic and otherwise, from the fading behemoths to the little voices in the proverbial wilderness.
Which brings me, finally, to the essay that provoked this little tangential rant I’ve foisted upon you. It’s from Adam Nagourney, and it relates more directly to the matters suggested by the headline on this post. You can read it HERE.
Entry Filed under: media
10 Comments Add your own
1. Mike Carroll | September 16th, 2008 at 10:08 am
and its commentary like what you have written that drew me to your columns in the RRS to begin with and to Applesauce now even though I doubt that we could agree on the time of day. BTW, “By God, you’re right about that;” so there is a first.
2. Pat Cunningham | September 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Mike: So, I’ll put you on the list of regulars who are having fun here, right? But, remember, none of us here is having any great influence on the political process.
3. Billybeermonicagar | September 16th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Add me to the list of people that enjoy reading both sides of the story. Start writing your book based on the kooks you have exposed from both sides–I’ll be first in line to purchase.
4. Pat Cunningham | September 16th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Billybeer: I don’t write books without a cash advance. Truly. That was the case with the only book I’ve written. I got my dough upfront and didn’t have to worry about sales.
5. Milton Waddams | September 16th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Applesauce keeps me from work all the time, I love being here.
6. Mike Carroll | September 16th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Full disclosure-I have a copy of Pat’s book.
7. Pat Cunningham | September 16th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Mike: The book is soon to become a major motion picture, with me playing the role of Germanicus Kent. (We’re looking to sign Angelina Jolie to play the lovely Mrs. Kent.) By the way, I had nothing to do with writing the stuff in the back of the book about “The 100 People of the Century.”
8. Uncle Bouncy | September 16th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Why Pat does what he does:
The Power of Political Misinformation
» Top 35 Opinion Articles
» Most Popular on washingtonpost.com
TOOLBOX
Resize
Print
E-mail
Yahoo! Buzz
Save/Share +
Digg
Newsvine
del.icio.us
Stumble It!
Reddit
Facebook
myspace
COMMENT
washingtonpost.com readers have posted 27 comments about this item.
View All Comments »
POST A COMMENT
You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register
Why Do I Have to Log In Again?
Log In Again?
CLOSE
We’ve made some updates to washingtonpost.com’s Groups, MyPost and comment pages. We need you to verify your MyPost ID by logging in before you can post to the new pages. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Discussion Policy
Your browser’s settings may be preventing you from commenting on and viewing comments about this item. See instructions for fixing the problem.
Discussion Policy
CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain “signatures” by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who’s Blogging
» Links to this article
By Shankar Vedantam
Monday, September 15, 2008; Page A06
Have you seen the photo of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin brandishing a rifle while wearing a U.S. flag bikini? Have you read the e-mail saying Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was sworn into the U.S. Senate with his hand placed on the Koran? Both are fabricated — and are among the hottest pieces of misinformation in circulation.
This Story
*
The Power of Political Misinformation
*
Monday, 11 a.m. ET: Science: Department of Human Behavior
As the presidential campaign heats up, intense efforts are underway to debunk rumors and misinformation. Nearly all these efforts rest on the assumption that good information is the antidote to misinformation.
But a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people’s minds after it has been debunked — even among people who recognize it as misinformation. In some cases, correcting misinformation serves to increase the power of bad information.
ad_icon
In experiments conducted by political scientist John Bullock at Yale University, volunteers were given various items of political misinformation from real life. One group of volunteers was shown a transcript of an ad created by NARAL Pro-Choice America that accused John G. Roberts Jr., President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court at the time, of “supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber.”
A variety of psychological experiments have shown that political misinformation primarily works by feeding into people’s preexisting views. People who did not like Roberts to begin with, then, ought to have been most receptive to the damaging allegation, and this is exactly what Bullock found. Democrats were far more likely than Republicans to disapprove of Roberts after hearing the allegation.
Bullock then showed volunteers a refutation of the ad by abortion-rights supporters. He also told the volunteers that the advocacy group had withdrawn the ad. Although 56 percent of Democrats had originally disapproved of Roberts before hearing the misinformation, 80 percent of Democrats disapproved of the Supreme Court nominee afterward. Upon hearing the refutation, Democratic disapproval of Roberts dropped only to 72 percent.
Republican disapproval of Roberts rose after hearing the misinformation but vanished upon hearing the correct information. The damaging charge, in other words, continued to have an effect even after it was debunked among precisely those people predisposed to buy the bad information in the first place.
Bullock found a similar effect when it came to misinformation about abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Volunteers were shown a Newsweek report that suggested a Koran had been flushed down a toilet, followed by a retraction by the magazine. Where 56 percent of Democrats had disapproved of detainee treatment before they were misinformed about the Koran incident, 78 percent disapproved afterward. Upon hearing the refutation, Democratic disapproval dropped back only to 68 percent — showing that misinformation continued to affect the attitudes of Democrats even after they knew the information was false.
Bullock and others have also shown that some refutations can strengthen misinformation, especially among conservatives.
Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.
A similar “backfire effect” also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.
In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might “argue back” against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same “backfire effect” when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration’s stance on stem cell research.
Bullock, Nyhan and Reifler are all Democrats.
Reifler questioned attempts to debunk rumors and misinformation on the campaign trail, especially among conservatives: “Sarah Palin says she was against the Bridge to Nowhere,” he said, referring to the pork-barrel project Palin once supported before she reversed herself. “Sending those corrections to committed Republicans is not going to be effective, and they in fact may come to believe even more strongly that she was always against the Bridge to Nowhere.”
9. Billybeermonicagar | September 16th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Hey Mike, Should I buy a copy? Are they all sold out? How big are the words and how many pages are there? Ah forget about it . I’ll just keep reading Applesauce.
10. Pat Cunningham | September 16th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Bouncy: What is that nosebleed above all about? And why did you include all that extraneous crap at the top? You’re taking up too much space with gibberish. And why would you pass along something that isn’t any more complimentary to conservatives than it is to liberals, perhaps even less so?
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed