Agreeing with a lot of the foregoing, I’d add two other factors:
Newspapers in the United States are local. It’s only been in the last 20 years - largely with the creation of USA Today, the geographic expansion in the New York Times and the coverage expansion of the Wall Street Journal - that we’ve had “national” newspapers. And I’ve just named all of them. Everything else is quite parochial, and that’s what people have come to expect.
And not many people read newspapers any more, either. Most rely on television, which as a visual medium isn’t capable of providing much background. Only a small minority of Americans - and people in general, I’d guess - have much interest in watching a bunch of talking heads sitting around discussing context. This affects much more than international coverage, of course - much of what’s important isn’t particularly photogenic. Murders, which are completely irrelevant to the general public, are.
I stopped watching TV news when I came to New York, because I realized that in a metro area of 18 million it was small beans to fill an hour with nothing but crime reports. This, at a time when New York was teetering financially.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible to catch up on international news. I’m saying that virtually all US mass media (none of the magazines you cite are really what I would consider common magazines) virtually ignores foreign news. Yes, you can get the Economist at major bookstores, or at newssrtands in major cities. But it hasn’t the circulation of Time or Newsweek. Many libraries don’t even carry it.
I think it’s quite reasonable to do so, because we’re talking about news, not some kind of head count. Regional news is still regional news regardless of what the political subdivisions are or how many people live in the region. As I said before, in my experience Europeans generally know a lot about stuff that’s happening in their backyard but little more than americans about world events. Their news happens to be international because their region includes multiple smaller countries, but I find that a rather silly distinction, AFAICS it’s just another bogus reason to use to say ‘I am better’ without any real justification.
Riboflavin, this is certainly not a “bogus” “I am better than you” thing. Nor is it a whine about the lack of knowledge of my particular back yard. I mean - from my experience of living in the US - pretty much anywhere outside the US. Asia, South America, Africa, Australasia, as well as Europe. Of course I’ve met many ignorant Europeans, and many Americans who are remarkably well informed, but when there is a blind spot as to foreign affairs, it seems to be a bigger blind spot in the US than in many other nations with a similar level of education. (The British young people in that survey weren’t far behind the Americans in ignorance, BTW).
Shibb0leth - I stand totally corrected re. land area. I was just repeating what I’d been told as a kid, and had never looked it up. Though the CIA population figures are out of date for the UK - it’s between 65 and 70 million last I heard (though the US population has probably grown too).
Sorry to add insult to injury, Riboflavin, but that quiz was predominently geographical knowledge. However, there was one particular question that is pertinent to the OP and US news media: “With what country would you associate the Taliban and Al Qaeda?”
83% of 18-24-year-old Americans did not identify Afghanistan as the answer to this question.
83%. This was the lowest result of all the countries surveyed (Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden and the United States). Yet this question was asked while US troops were on Afghan soil.
What can I say? Texas is a big desolate place that no one wants to go to.
US population is approximate as of the last census, in 2000. The UK population is from the 2002 CIA Factbook. Brought to you by the same people who gave the bombing coordinates for the Chinese embassy, so I can’t really vouchsafe the accuracy. But according to this UK site, the population was 58,789,194 as of the 2001 census. Probably where the spooks got it as well.
Sorry about the hijack, it’s just that incorrect data has a way of being repeated.
It certainly seems to be, especially when you demonstrate some pretty gross gaps in knowledge of your own backyard - when you lectured me about the relative sizes and populations of the UK and US, for example, you were completely and utterly wrong. As I typically see from Europeans, you go on about how ignorant Americans are, and about a blind spot with regards to foreign affairs, but when talking about the size of the UK you get it grossly wrong, and can’t even correctly read a simple figure from a source you cited.
From looking at the sample questions provided, I have to wonder what, if anything, that survey is measuring and what its relevance is here - it seems to be doing more measuring of test-taking skills than of geographical knowledge, much less of world events. For example, the numbers for Sweeden and Norway cover both countries and so neither one is actually a correct answer, but you can figure out the ‘correct’ answer because only one of them is in what is asked - that’s not geographical knowledge, that’s test-taking knowledge. Also, while they’ll say ‘can’t find whatever on a map’, you’re really looking for the outline of a country on an unlabeled map - not quite the same thing (someone may know basically where Afghanistan is and what countries it borders, but not be able to pick it out solely by shape).
I’m always skeptical of these tests after having read about the famous one that said that some percent of Americans couldn’t pick the US out on a map - they counted people who pointed out the continental US but not Alaska and Hawaii as wrong.
Read your own source - it was 42%, not 83%, and the question was not phrased like your quote. If you’re going to go on some cocky bit about adding insult to injury, at least demonstrate basic reading comprehension.
And what does that 42% figure really tell us? Without seeing the rest of the survey results, we don’t know whether people were getting Afghanistan and Pakistan (where most of the US troops staged into Afghanistan) mixed up or just had no idea what was going on. Or whether they knew too much for the survey and refused to answer with a single country, since the original question asked about which countries the Taliban and Al Queda were based in, and Al Queda was certainly based in multiple countries.
Ribo, several points. First, jjimm gave the stats for the wrong question - his stats go with finding Afghanistan on the map, for which 17% is an appalling rate.
Second, I don’t buy the excuse that people can’t be expected to pick out a country “solely” by its shape - especially because that’s not what’s required for this test. As you point out in your criticism of the Sweden question, all you need is a general idea of where Afghanistan is located. Take a look at the other choices: Turkey, China and Algeria, only one of which is remotely close to Central Asia. Are you seriously suggesting that mistaking Afghanistan for one of those three is somehow acceptable?
Third, the actual N.G. survey question is:
Jjimm’s paraphrase was pretty accurate - I think you’re splitting hairs.
Fourth, how on earth is a 42% failure rate for the above defensible? If anything, jjimm’s paraphrase was charitable - it allowed for people to be confused. The actual question asks where al Qaeda and the Taliban are based, and that’s a simple yes-no.
Fifth, speaking of splitting hairs, what on earth is your point about Sweden & Norway, anyway? That NGS couldn’t exactly fit the numbers? Good lord, you must’ve been a real treat for your teachers.
But after all that, I do think you have a point that people have a sort of geographic limit to what they’re interested in. The other kicker is that the United States is so dominant at this point in history that it behooves people to know about us - whereas we don’t have the same incentive to know about them. Analogy: everyone knows who Madonna is, but Madonna doesn’t know very many of us.
I’m afraid that there is always milage in the “stupid Americans” story.
Barely a month goes by without the British media publishing a survey that shows that 90% of Americans think that France is in Africa or that Russia is populated by talking moon-rabbits.
Recent real surveys include 75% of septics think that the United Kingdom is in the Middle East and about the same number couldn’t find Iraq on the map.
If there is any trith in this it is a bit of a worry. Eg I don’t know much about venezuala (including how to spell it) but I can find it on a map.
So how come most of the Americans I “meet” online seem quite brainy? Is this a small self selecting group?
Yes, he couldn’t read a simple statistic properly from his own source when lamenting how foolish and ignorant those nasty 'ol Americans are. I’ve seen it over and over again; some ignorant European berates Americans for allegedly having the kind of knowledge and reasoning gaps said European shows in his own argument.
I don’t buy the whole survey’s structure from what I’ve seen published of it, and from past experience expect that the actual implementation of the survey was even more designed to get poor results.
The article linked to directly comments on people being unable to find country X on a map, I was pointing out that that’s not what was actually tested. You can whine about ‘excuses’ and ‘acceptable’, but that doesn’t change what was actually being looked at by the questions.
That’s a measure of test-taking skills, not geographic knowledge. Are you seriously suggesting that those two are the same thing?
Also, is it confirmed anywhere that the samples are done in exactly the same way as the original test? I wouldn’t be suprised if the original was even more error-prone.
Jjimm’s paraphrase was completely different. “With what country would you associate the Taliban and Al Qaeda?” doesn’t even have a objective answer, any country provided would be correct.
Read what I actually wrote and get back to me. I’m not going to play some game of figuring out where ‘defensible’ came from.
Except that Al Queda was based in multiple countries, so there’s not a correct answer anyway. If you’re not going to read what I wrote before, I’m just going to repeat it until you do.
“Splitting hairs”? Alright, I wasted my time with the earlier response. If you think its “splitting hairs” to point out that there is no correct answer because the labels in question cover multiple countries, you’re really not worth conversting with.
What absolute twaddle. Countries that include both the Taliban and Al Qaeda number in the one. And anybody who doesn’t get the general, hair-split-free answer to that, is ignorant.
I think ruadh hit the nail on the head. I’d know general stories that are in the US news. I rarely look at NBC or ABC news as to be frank I think they are light weight shite(as with a lot of European/Irish news sources BTW).
The Irish Times (paper version) and Newsnight . Says a lot for Irish news
People only have a fixed time to get their info. If international news isn’t catered for very well then they are going to suffer.
America probably shows it’s ignorance more than other because of it’s place in that world. Lots of foreign involvement in politics and business so lots more opportunities to get asked questions. It’s not that the US are more ignorant than any other country it’s just that they get asked more questions
In Europe, I had people ask me odd questions - How long does it take to fly from Hollywood to LA? Another friend thought he would fly to NY, rent a car and drive to California and see the sights along the way. By the way, his USA trip was scheduled to be 4 days - in December. I pity anybody from the state of New Mexico as one friend of mine from would spend hours trying to explain it really was a US state. He actually started saying he was from Arizona, just to make it easier.
On the flip side, I had a friend in the US ask one of my European friends if they have trucks in Europe. Another American once asked me if they really spoke French “all the time” in France.
So - my guess is, no matter where you are from, there are a lot of people who are not that well informed about the rest of the world. Their loss.
But they probably find me an ingnorant fool when they start in on sports topics - and they would be right - I don’t know diddle about sports and I don’t give a damn.
Priorities, I guess.
As far as all those stupid 85% believe…23% think…only 3% know…well, as a psych major, I can tell you it is very easy to skew results in the direction you want the results to go. I bet I could create a questionairre on this board and prove 50% of the SDMB members have not got a clue about (fill in the blank).
However, what would be the point? To prove that 50% are worldly and smart, or that 50% are dumb and stupid. Either result is pointlessly vain.
I admit I made an error by quoting the wrong stat. However, the mileage you seem to need to get out of this strikes me as tremendously defensive.
I’m not saying “ooh, we’re better than you” - I’m saying that the mainstream media in the US seems to have an unusually non-International bias, and here is an example. That is all.
But to be more specific, that person asked if there were semi-trucks in Europe.
There are a lot more stupid questions I remember being asked by both Europeans and Americans, but I guess the questions are only stupid if you know the answer.
But getting back to the OP…I think the gist of this whole thing is what basic information a well-read individual should know, and what basic information anybody but an idiot should know.
The problem is, who decides what is basic? It seems there are still quite a few people who do not believe anyone has ever landed on the moon. And I bet there are more than a few who really believe Elvis is alive.
