# How Do Liberals Learn About Politics? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 28, 2003, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038 "2003-02-28T01:21:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/101 "2003-03-01T05:02:10Z")
## Observation/Claim: Harper’s, the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly have more political content than fiction. So, “literary” is a misnomer. I’m not promising to look at the Pew dataset, but it would help me at least if we could throw a few hypotheses up. I’ll start with the obvious ones, for the purposes of setting them aside: ## St1: All liberals are stupid. St2: All conservatives are stupid. Assumption 1: Stupid people don’t graduate college. Ok, now that we have that out of the way… F1: Conservatives are more susceptible to groupthink, usually manifested as nationalism, but sometimes manifested as a visceral dislike of contrary ideologies. Therefore, conservatives are more likely to read drum beaters like Ann Coulter; among liberals, drum beaters like Michael Moore will have a lower market share. ## (The problem with this is clearly identifying “drum-beaters”. Ann Coulter is fairly clear, but Michael Moore is also a comedian: perhaps MM’s analogue is Rush.) F2: Liberals read more than conservatives, after controlling for education. F3: Liberals read more than conservatives, after controlling for education and gender. ## F4: Conservatives read more ideological fare than liberals do. Dang, this is tough. Look, I’m not saying I believe any of the above; I’m just trying to come up with some statements that we might be able to evaluate. ## And I’ve been working exclusively with the “self-identified” liberal label. Maybe a better approach would be to compare Democrats with Republicans. -------- **Sam** : Cable television, which is much more competitive and open than the ‘big three’ networks, is veering sharply to the right - not because the owners of the networks are ideologues, but because liberal programming that is tried dies a horrible death in the marketplace. F5: Liberals, whose goals are to promote social welfare (in contrast to conservative rights-based approaches), are likely to want to evaluate a variety of methods for solving social problems. This makes them an inherently contentious lot. It also leads to ponderous electronic programing. ## (Ok, but what about the web?) **Sam** : Do you see a core question here? The underlying issue to me would involve a comparison between Democratic time usage and Republican time usage. Do you see that as the main underlying issue? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/102 "2003-03-01T05:10:46Z")
**SS:** _Maybe people on the left spend more of their intellectual capital on, say, the arts? That certainly seems to be the case, adn that is supported by the one type of media that looks to have a large liberal audience - the ‘literary’ magazines._ I don’t think anyone has commented on this point yet, though maybe I missed it, but the distinction between you draw between “news media” and “literary magazines” is a rather strange one. Examples of periodicals that you describe in your posts as “literary magazines” include _The New Yorker_, _Atlantic Monthly_, _Harper’s_, and _Mother Jones_. Do you imagine that these are just magazines about “the arts”? As a matter of fact, a lot of their content is about politics and current affairs. Just take a look at some samples from the tables of contents of current issues of these periodicals: > [@](#): > > _New Yorker:_ > Target on the Hudson > Just how vulnerable is the Indian Point nuclear power plant? > by Elizabeth Kolbert > PLUS: A conversation with Kolbert about nuclear safety and terrorism (see Online Only). > > From Trinidad to London > V. S. Naipaul and the problems of race and nationality. > > _Harper’s:_ > NO MORE UNTO THE BREACH > Jonathan Schell > Part I: Why war is futile > > RESOLVED TO RUIN > Greg Palast > The World Bank/IMF takeover, in four easy steps > > JESUS PLUS NOTHING > Jeffrey Sharlet > Undercover among America’s secret theocrats > > _Atlantic:_ > An Interview With Bill Clinton > The full transcript of James Fallows’s conversation with Bill Clinton, a companion to the March 2003 cover story, “Post-President for Life.” > > What Now? by Michael Kelly > > Kicking the Secularist Habit by David Brooks > > Back to Bork? by Byron York > > _Mother Jones:_ > Cover Story: The Thirty-Year Itch > By Robert Dreyfuss > Amid the 1970s oil crisis, a group of Washington hawks laid out a plan for U.S. domination of the Persian Gulf. Three decades later, the Bush administration is moving in for the endgame. > > Outback Nightmares & Refugee Dreams > By Charles Bowden > When a few thousand asylum seekers hit its shores, Australia responded with a naval blockade, internment camps, and deportation. Now other nations are looking to the “Pacific Solution” as the way to be rid of refugees. > > Up Against Wal-Mart > By Karen Olsson > Poverty wages, unpaid overtime, surveillance cameras, and an all-out war on unions: It takes more than everyday low prices to be the world’s largest, most profitable retailer. > > Tale of Two Chinas > Photo Essay By James Whitlow Delano Text by Orville Schell > In the new China, growth is good, and history is, well, history. > > Living in an Age of Fire > By Joann Wypijewski > With some of their sons and brothers accused of being a “sleeper cell,” the Yemenis of Lackawanna, New York, have faced the nation’s small-town suspicion with silence. > > The Patient Predator > By Kevin Patterson > Experts call it an “emerging epidemic” and “Ebola with wings.” It preys on poverty and rides the currents of globalization. It’s becoming immune to antibiotics. It’s tuberculosis – and it’s deadlier than ever. > > The Short, Unhappy Life of Campaign Finance Reform > By Paul Taylor > McCain-Feingold took six years to pass – and six days to derail. A look at the grave future of campaign finance reform. > > The Bad Guy > By Miles Harvey > In search of Jose Padilla: Is he an enemy combatant? Or the perfect fall guy? > > As the World Burns > By Ian Frazier > Long ago, in a decade far, far away, the Bush plan on global warming begins… > > Balance of Power > Kurdistan’s balancing act Just “literary” magazines devoted to “the arts”? Hardly; there’s a whole bunch of news and political commentary in magazines like these. [Note added in preview: I see that damn liberal **Ludovic** has beat me to the punch. Oh well, I provided the documentation. :)] ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/103 "2003-03-01T05:59:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Will this cause America and even the world in general to veer to the right? . **Sam** , please. No masturbating in GD. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/104 "2003-03-01T05:59:37Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by **Sam Stone** : > > It seems we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle, unless we accept the idea that people who trend conservative really are more likely to consume the news media than are people on the left. And frankly, that seems to me to be the best hypothesis so far. You are correct. The reason you’re correct is, to say it again, the lower down the income strata you go, the more likely you are to be liberal. See the following, which identifies party affiliation by income: [http://www.u.arizona.edu/~norrande/pol231/pid-h/sld013.htm](http://www.u.arizona.edu/~norrande/pol231/pid-h/sld013.htm) This link shows Internet usage by income level (see Figure ii-1 on the third page): [http://www.uni.edu/~williamw/teach/pe/notes/TE11(1).pdf](http://www.uni.edu/~williamw/teach/pe/notes/TE11(1).pdf) So Internet usage declines as Democratic party affiliation rises, which is what you would expect, because using the Internet usually costs some amount of money. Ditto for cable. The least surprising part of this is that cable viewers would lean hard to the right; given that the more well to do you are the more use you will make of pay cable services or satellite TV, it’s hardly surprising that the audience is right wing. Final ditto for magazines. Obviously, a magazine subscription is a discretionary purchase. Paying the rent is a higher priority. There is really nothing surprising about the fact that media outlets are consumed more by conservatives than liberals. What is surprising is that it’s taken until now for the right to begin to dominate the media. And you’re right that liberals should be worried. It will only continue to get worse as income inequality inexorably increases in this increasingly union free world. (Do I get a prize for having a sentence with five words that begin with ‘i’ in a row?) ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/105 "2003-03-01T06:02:29Z")
Crapola. You’ll have to cut & paste that second link. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/106 "2003-03-01T06:08:08Z")
Also, just to throw this in, the lower down the income ladder you go, the less time you have to “consume media”, as it becomes more likely you’re working more than one job. See Table 2 on page 2 of this link, although this table cuts off at a pretty low level of income, for some unknown reason. Still, the trend is clear: > **[art2full.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1997/03/art2full.pdf)** > > 88.61 KB ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/107 "2003-03-01T06:11:02Z")
I’m aware that the ‘literary’ magazines have political content. That’s why they are listed on the media survey. But they typically also have ‘arts’ content - architecture, literature, theatre, etc. The argument would be that it is this content that tends to disproportionally attract liberals. **flowbark:** Well, there are two issues, I think. One is where or not there is a real difference between news consumption of liberals and conservatives. The seond is, regardless of what possible reasons there may be, the media seems to have started a skew to the right. If so, what effect will this have? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/108 "2003-03-01T06:21:02Z")
[p]Pantom:[/p] Well, there’s certainly a correlation. But is it the cause? It’s really hard to see the mechanism. It’s not like the poor are really lacking in free time. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/109 "2003-03-01T06:38:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Maeglin \* > A lot of liberals everywhere subscribe to lists like these. Every major nonprofit allows you to receive their emails for free. Why would I want to watch a ten second pre-digested blurb on CNN when I can read a policy brief replete with facts, numbers, links, and contact information for people I can harass? > > Anyone else out there use these briefs as a source of news? Yes…I pointed to some of these in my list of sources. I agree that they are really useful. On the other hand, writing all the e-mails, letters, etc. to policymakers that together they recommend could almost be another fulltime job in itself! > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Sam Stone_ > But now that the media is becoming more democratized, market forces will push it to the right. While I know what you are getting at, I would tend to object to the word “democratized”…partly because I don’t see the market as an exact synonym for democracy and partly because you are ignoring the fact that much of the media is increasingly coming into the hands of a smaller and smaller group of megacorporations. For example, ClearChannel (?) now owns an incredible fraction of radio stations. And, newspapers are being bought up by Murdoch and Gannett and all those folks. Even on the internet, one is seeing a lot of consolidation of content into large providers (I heard a report on this on NPR). > [@](#): > > It’s not like the poor are really lacking in free time. What is this supposed to mean? I suppose it’s a view of the poor as all being on welfare and just sitting at home with nary a care in the world relaxing or something? I agree with **kimstu** in regards to the “literary magazines”…particularly in regards to ones like _Mother Jones_ (is that really put into that category?) which I thought was pretty much all political content. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/110 "2003-03-01T06:44:22Z")
Check the figures for multiple job holders. If your working more than one job, you have less free time. Keep in mind that these are government figures that are sure to understate the number of people who hold down multiple jobs. Plenty of people will work “off the books” of course, and that won’t show up here. And if you don’t have an Internet connection, you can’t log on to some liberal web site. If you don’t have cable, you can’t watch it. If you can’t afford a magazine subscription, you’re not going to read magazines, except maybe in the barber shop. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/111 "2003-03-01T07:12:20Z")
**SS:** _I’m aware that the ‘literary’ magazines have political content. That’s why they are listed on the media survey. But they typically also have ‘arts’ content - architecture, literature, theatre, etc. The argument would be that it is this content that tends to disproportionally attract liberals._ You seem to be suggesting not that liberals are less interested in politics, but that conservatives are less interested in architecture, literature, theatre, etc.—which is a whole different debate. Just because liberals may be more inclined to mix their learning about politics with learning about other intellectual areas doesn’t necessarily imply that liberals are less interested in learning about politics than conservatives are. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/112 "2003-03-01T07:17:53Z")
**jshore** : _…particularly in regards to ones like Mother Jones (is that really put into that category?) which I thought was pretty much all political content._ Yeah, I wouldn’t have characterized _MJ_ as a “literary magazine” myself, but **Sam** did: \*It is a comprehensive study of the media. And the ONLY category they could find in which liberals outnumbered conservatives was in the ‘literary’ magazines like The New Yorker and Mother Jones. \* ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/113 "2003-03-01T07:24:59Z")
While I think this whole trend is explained fairly well by the meaninglessness of the term “liberal” and the relative hesitancy of people to self-identify as such, I would be concerned if those of my political wing were greater consumers of media if much of said media were produced by the likes of Rush, Coulter, O’Reilly, Savage, etc. I’ve read all of **Jack Dean Tyler** ’s posts on circumcision, but I don’t consider myself more informed as a result. I think the relative reluctance for liberals to self-identify comes back to what I see as the fundamental difference between cons and libs–conservatives see the world in black-and-white terms, while liberals recognize nearly infinite shades of gray. (I believe conservatives call this being “wishy-washy”.) Thus, those with a conservative mindset are more likely to identify themselves as being on one side of a dividing line, while those with more liberal viewpoints will inevitably consider their position to be one of compromise and thus think of themselves as moderate. I propose that if you let conservatives divide a particular medium’s consumers into conservatives, liberals, and “other”, you’d see these numbers even out a lot more, since a lot of those moderates would move into the liberal category. Sorry for the rambling. Not much sleep this week. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/114 "2003-03-01T07:39:57Z")
**KImtsu:** Actually, I think I picked the wrong magazine. “Mother Jones” shouldn’t be on the list, as you say. The three listed in the article as representative of this group were The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Magazine. > [@](#): > > You seem to be suggesting not that liberals are less interested in politics, but that conservatives are less interested in architecture, literature, theatre, etc.—which is a whole different debate. No it’s not. If liberals and conservatives have an equal desire for intellectual ‘recreation’, then if liberals enjoy fine arts more, it must come at the expense of something. Perhaps liberals and conservatives just allocate their time differently. > [@](#): > > What is this supposed to mean? I suppose it’s a view of the poor as all being on welfare and just sitting at home with nary a care in the world relaxing or something? Not at all. What I’m saying is that I don’t know of any evidence that shows that poor people have significantly less free time than rich people to spend on pure recreation. While there are poor people who hold two jobs, there are lots of rich workaholics who work 12 hours a day. And the professional careers require lots of extra-curricular study. But I’m willing to be proven wrong, because this is really just my impression, and I don’t think I’ve seen any research to indicate that the different in free time correlates with income to any great degree. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/115 "2003-03-01T09:02:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > So starting from this premise, that the ideological balance in the country is roughly equal, you would also expect an equal balance of sales in the commercial media. You would expect an equal number of liberal talk talk shows, talk radio, liberal idea books, etc. But you are ignoring the fact that “liberal” has become more or less a dirty word in today’s political climate. We are talking about how people SELF-identify. The hesitancy of people to self-identify with a word that is out of favor could easily skew any supposed “balance” between the two political ideologies. The other thing you are not accounting for is the possibility that conservative types might tend to favor materials that reinforce their views, while liberals might tend to favor more objective sources. Conservatives might enjoy Rush because he spouts the same dogma that they already believe, and thus makes them feel good about themselves. But perhaps liberals want to think for themselves, and therefore eschew Donahue for that same reason. That would certainly account for any disparity between consumption of “conservative” and “liberal” media. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/116 "2003-03-01T09:06:41Z")
**Sam** : > [@](#): > > _But the problem I have with that is that it still doesn’t explain the large industry trends._ A trend is a broad change of habits over time. Your Pew Study shows no trends in relation to ideology, but tracks trends for viewer ages, and across different sorts of media. Again, as has been pointed out several times in this thread, you’re reading the study wrong. Willfully, apparently. > [@](#): > > _Let’s step back a minute and look at voting data, which is pretty evenly split along a right/left axis. I think it’s fair to say that there are about 20-30% of the population who consider themselves on the left, and a similar amount who consider themselves on the right._ No, this is not fair to say at all. A voter who happens to vote for a democratic candidate may not consider himself liberal, or choose to identify himself as one. A voter who happens to prefer a republican candidate may not consider himself conservative. Finally, a very large percentage of the American public doesn’t vote at all, but many who do not vote may nevertheless identify themselves as liberals or conservatives. The Pew study states clearly, twice, that there is no significant deviation between the ideological preference of most news-viewing audiences and the general public. Note: > [@](#): > > - For all the controversy over Fox News Channel’s supposed ideological leanings, its audience is only slightly more conservative than the **national average.** Nearly half (46%) of regular viewers of Fox describe themselves as conservatives, while 18% describe themselves as liberal. By comparison, CNN’s regular audience is 40% conservative and 16% liberal.\* This means, if I read it correctly, that the **National Average** of the percentage of conservatives to liberals is _slightly less_ than 46% conservative and 18% liberal. The study goes on to suggest a reason for this discrepancy as well.\* > [@](#): > > Largely because the television news audience is dominated by older people (who tend to be more conservative), the profile of nearly every television news source is **slightly more conservative than the national average.** \* and goes on to note… > [@](#): > > - Fox News and the more business-oriented CNBC have the most conservative audiences, while the audience for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is, if anything, **slightly more liberal than the national average.** \* Is that any clearer, **Sam**? > [@](#): > > - So starting from this premise, that the ideological balance in the country is roughly equal, you would also expect an equal balance of sales in the commercial media. You would expect an equal number of liberal talk talk shows, talk radio, liberal idea books, etc.\* Yes, but the premise is false, as has been pointed out about 5 times so far. Still don’t get it? > [@](#): > > - But there isn’t. There’s a vast difference. The book publishing industry is selling overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers of conservative books (non-fiction category considered only, of course). \* You trotted out this tired observation months ago, in a different thread, and it was roundly dismissed as a poor measure of anything. Yet you still insist on using it. > [@](#): > > - Cable television, which is much more competitive and open than the ‘big three’ networks, is veering sharply to the right - not because the owners of the networks are ideologues, but because liberal programming that is tried dies a horrible death in the marketplace. \* And apparently, the only evidence you have for this is the fact that O’Reilly beat out Donahue. Is Geraldo Rivera still out there? What about Michael Moore? > [@](#): > > - This is the context in which the PEW survey was brought up - as an attempt to explain this discrepancy.\* No, this is merely your seriously warped take on the meaning of the study, which, according to the [**introduction**](http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=612), is designed to investigate changes in news viewing habits among the population since 9/11. > [@](#): > > - PEW surveyed the audiences across all media, and found a disproportionate number of self-identified conservatives as opposed to liberals. Now, it may be that this study is simply reflecting the national average of people who self-indentify that way. \* No, gee – really? Do ya think? > [@](#): > > - But if that’s the case, then there are only two conclusions - one is that self-identification is meaningless, in which case we still have the original question to answer (why do conservative-oriented materials do better in the marketplace?), or people self identify as conservatives in a 2-1 margin over liberals because conservatives actually outnumber liberals by 2-1. If that’s the case, then how do we fit that into the voting data?\* See the beginning of my post, above. Your conclusions are based on false premises. > [@](#): > > - It seems we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle, unless we accept the idea that people who trend conservative really are more likely to consume the news media than are people on the left. And frankly, that seems to me to be the best hypothesis so far. Maybe people on the left spend more of their intellectual capital on, say, the arts? \* Well, clearly, _somebody_ in this discussion is missing something. But frankly, your “best hypothesis” is little more a veiled insult towards those who fail to share your worldview. Clearly, in your world, the only possible explanation for such a failure is that your opponents are, by comparison to you, ignorant. And anyway, you know those artsy-fartsy liberal types. I hear that most of them are gay, as well. I find your presumptions about liberals, as well as your conclusions, cliché and insulting. And I’m not even a “liberal.” ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/117 "2003-03-01T13:47:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Svinlesha \* > The Pew study states clearly, twice, that there is no significant deviation between the ideological preference of most news-viewing audiences and the general public. > > > [@](#): > > > > **Pew** For all the controversy over Fox News Channel’s supposed ideological leanings, its audience is only slightly more conservative than the national average. Nearly half (46%) of regular viewers of Fox describe themselves as conservatives, while 18% describe themselves as liberal. By comparison, CNN’s regular audience is 40% conservative and 16% liberal. > > Note: This means, if I read it correctly, that the **National Average** of the percentage of conservatives to liberals is _slightly less_ than 46% conservative and 18% liberal. I don’t read this the way you did, **Mr. Svinlesha**. I think Pew is talking about the National Average _of TV news watchers,_ rather than the average of the general public. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/118 "2003-03-01T14:03:23Z")
**Sam** , this is totally anecdotal, but my conservative friends tend to have much more interest in things like auto mechanics and spectator sports than do my liberal friends. I suspect that if you did a similar survey on the political leanings of _Car and Driver_, _Sports Illustrated_, etc., you would find a skew to the right. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\* > > (snip) > > If liberals and conservatives have an equal desire for intellectual ‘recreation’, then if liberals enjoy fine arts more, it must come at the expense of something. Perhaps liberals and conservatives just allocate their time differently. > > \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/119 "2003-03-01T18:51:38Z")
Okay, here’s some data about the percentage of declared liberals and conservatives in the population. The data comes from the [exit polls](http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/epolls/US/P000.html) from the last federal election. The same question was asked - “do you consider yourself a liberal? A conservative? Other?” And, while more people did self-identify as conservatives than as liberals, the difference wasn’t as big as the split in the media polling. In the exit polling, the numbers were 20% liberal, and 29% conservative. On the other hand, the ratio in most of the media is more like 40% conservative and 15-18% liberal. So normalizing the data against the population as a whole will explain some of the discrepancy, but not all of it. But again, for about the seventh time, the PEW survey is not the only thing we’re talking about here. We’re also talking about the failure of ‘liberal’ media, or at least its smaller audience size. Here’s one factor that hasn’t been discussed, whcih I think might be an important one - the real split in news consumption might not be between liberals and conservatives - it might be between men and women. Since women are more likely to be liberal than are men, a split between genders would also change the political demographic of the news. How about that theory? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038/120 "2003-03-01T21:18:17Z")
**Sam** : > [@](#): > > - Okay, here’s some data about the percentage of declared liberals and conservatives in the population. > > The data comes from the exit polls from the last federal election. The same question was asked - “do you consider yourself a liberal? A conservative? Other?” And, while more people did self-identify as conservatives than as liberals, the difference wasn’t as big as the split in the media polling. In the exit polling, the numbers were 20% liberal, and 29% conservative. > > On the other hand, the ratio in most of the media is more like 40% conservative and 15-18% liberal. > > So normalizing the data against the population as a whole will explain some of the discrepancy, but not all of it.\* No, **Sam** , no. Again, these two measures are not equivalent, at least not unless you can further generalize from “distribution of liberal vs. conservative _voters_” to “distribution of liberal vs. conservative _citizens_.” Look at it this way: approximately 51% of the American population voted during the last federal election. Assuming that the 13000 voters interviewed for this exit poll provide an accurate picture of the entire voting population, the only conclusions one can draw regarding the results are clearly limited to that 51% of the population. The distribution of “self-identifying” liberals to conservatives for the non-voting 49% remains unknown. It is entirely conceivable that there are substantially more conservatives that liberals in that 49%. In other words, the poll only measures about half the US population, at best. You’re drawing a general conclusion from a data set that’s too limited. I’ve not been able to locate the “national average” the PEW Survey refers to, but the point is moot: even given **december’s** interpretation of one of the passages, above, the others make it clear that the comparison is being made between averages of new-watching populations, on the one hand, and the general population, on the other. > [@](#): > > - But again, for about the seventh time, the PEW survey is not the only thing we’re talking about here. We’re also talking about the failure of ‘liberal’ media, or at least its smaller audience size.\* In your OP you specifically ask, “_Are liberals uneducated? How do they learn about current policy? Do they actually study politics, history, etc?_” (It’s kind of quaint, the way you refer to “liberals” as if they were another species or something.) You base the insinuation that liberals are less educated and less informed on studies like the one above. Your interpretation of that study is incorrect; now you seem to want to change the subject of the thread completely, rather than simply admitting that you misunderstood the PEW results. As to the “failure” of the “liberal media,” you’ve presented no concrete evidence of such. I’m not sure how you define either “liberal media” or “failure,” for that matter. If you’re curious as to why the political “left” never really managed to establish a foothold with US political culture, that’s a completely different question from the one you originally posted. > [@](#): > > - Here’s one factor that hasn’t been discussed, whcih I think might be an important one - the real split in news consumption might not be between liberals and conservatives - it might be between men and women. Since women are more likely to be liberal than are men, a split between genders would also change the political demographic of the news. > > How about that theory?\* Sure, how ‘bout it? Sounds sexist to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-liberals-learn-about-politics/158038.md?page=7)