Information,Misinformation,and Political Talk Radio

Abstract

This article provides an empirical test of the theory that individuals gather political knowledge by inferential reasoning -constructing political ”reality” from the messages to which they are exposed by making inferences about what they do not know based on extrapolations from what they see or hear. This ”filling-in” may often result in misinformation, or the belief in incorrect information (as distinguished from a simple lack of information, or ignorance). Widespread misinformation among the electorate changes our conception of democracy as a ”marketplace of ideas,” and may have much more serious consequences than does a broad lack of information or sophistication on the part of the electorate. Data from a 1997 random-digit-dial survey of 810 adults residing in San Diego was used to test the hypothesis that listening to political talk radio leads to higher levels of both information (regarding non-ideologically charged facts) and misinformation (regarding ideologically charged facts). Analysis revealed that active listening (not only listening but also calling and/or taking action because of talk radio) corresponded to higher levels of in- formation, regardless of the ideological nature of the talk radio programs to which the listeners were exposed. However, greater frequency of exposure to conservative talk radio independently corresponded to greater misinformation, while greater exposure to moderate programming was associated with being less misinformed, controlling for partisanship, ide ology, and a number of other predictors.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Barker, David C. 1998a. ”Rush to Action: Political Talk Radio and Health Care (un)Reform”. Political Communication 15 (1): 83-98.

Barker, David C. 1998b. ”The Talk-Radio Community: Non-traditional Social Networks and Political Participation”. Social Science Quarterly 79 (June): 261-272.

Barker, David C. , and Kathleen Knight . 1996. ”Talk Radio Turns the Tide? The Limbaugh Effect, 1993-1995”. Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco.

Bartels, Larry M. 1996. “Uninformed Votes: Information Effects in Presidential Elections”. AmericanJournal of Political Science 40 (1): 194-230.

Bolce, Louis , Gerald de Maio , and Douglas Muzzio . 1996. ”Dial-In Democracy: Talk Radio and the 1994 Election”. Political Science Quarterly 111: 457-481.

Chaffee, Steven , and Joan Scheudler . 1986. ”Measurement and Effects of Attention to Media News”. Human Communication Research 13: 76-107.

Converse, Philip E. 1964. ”The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics”. In David Apter , ed., Ideology and Discontent, pp. 206-261. New York: Free Press.

Davis, Richard . 1996. ”Political Talk Radio as a Public Issue Discussion Forum”. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, June 30-July 3, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Delli, Carpini, Michael X. , and Scott Keeter . 1993. ”Measuring Political Knowledge: Putting First Things First”. AmericanJournal of Political Science 37: 1179-1206.

10.

Grunig, James E. 1989. ”Publics, Audiences and Market Segments: Segmentation Principles for Campaigns”. In Charles T. Salmon ed., Information Campaigns: Communications Research, pp.199-228. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

11.

Hofstetter, C. Richard . 1998. ”Political Talk Radio, Situational Involvement, and Political Mobilization”. Social Science Quarterly 79 (2): 273-286.

12.

Hofstetter, C. Richard , Mark C. Donovan , Melville R. Klauber , Alexandra Cole , Carolyn J. Huie , and Toshiyuki Yuasa . 1994. ”Political Talk Radio: A Stereotype Reconsidered”. Political Research Quarterly 47: 467-479.

13.

Hofstetter, C. Richard , and Christopher L. Gianos . 1997. ”Political Talk Radio: Actions Speak Louder than Words”. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 41 (4): 501-515.

14.

Hofstetter, C. Richard , James T Smith , Gina M. Zari , and Carolyn Huie Hofstetter . In Press. ”The Political Talk Radio Experience: A Community Study“ American Review of Politics.

15.

Hollander, Barry L. 1995. ”Talk Radio, the New News, and the Old News”. Paper prepared for the Southern Political Science Association, Tampa, Florida.

16.

Hofstetter, C. Richard , James T Smith , Gina M. Zari , and Carolyn Huie Hofstetter . 1996. ”Talk Radio: Predictors of Use and Effects on Attitudes about Government”. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 73 (1): 102-113.

17.

Katz, Elihu , and Paul F Lazarsfeld , 1964. Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. New York: Free Press.

18.

Kuklinski, James H. , PaulJ. Quirk , David Schneider , and Robert E Rich . 1997. ”Misinformation and the Currency of Citizenship”. Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 10-12.

19.

Newhagen, John E. 1994. ”Media Use and Political Efficacy: The Suburbanization of Race and Class”. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 45: 386-394.

20.

Newhagen, John E. 1996. ”Interactivity as a Factor in the Assessment of Political Call-In Programs”. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology. Vancouver, BC, Canada, June 29-July3.

21.

Nie, Norman H. , Sidney Verba , and John R. Petrocik . 1976. The Changing American Voter Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

22.

Page, Benjamin I. , and Robert Y. Shapiro . 1992. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in American's Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

23.

Rosenstone, Steven J. , Donald R. Kinder , Warren E. Miller , Virginia Sapiro , and The National Election Studies . National Election Studies, 1997: Pilot Study (dataset). 1st release. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies, producer and distributor.

24.

Schoemaker, Pamela J. , Caroline Schooler , and Wayne A. Danielson . 1989. ”Involvement with the Media”. Communication Research 16 (1): 78-90.

25.

Shneidman, Edwin S. 1969. ”Logical Content Analysis: An Explication of Styles of Concludifying”. In George Gerbner , Ole R Holsti , Klaus Krippendorff , William J. Paisley , and Philip P Stone , eds., The Analysis of Communication Content: Developments in Scientific Theories and Computer Techniques, pp. 261-279. New York: Wiley

26.

Smith, Eric R. A. N. 1989. The Unchanging American Voter. Berkeley: University of California Press.

27.

Traugott, Michael , Adam Berinsky , Katherine Cramer , Margaret Howard , Russell Mayer , Harvey Prieto Shuckman , David Tewksbury , and Margaret Young . 1996. ”The Impact of Talk Radio on its Audience”. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, Vancouver, BC, Canada, June 29-July 3.

28.

Weaver, David H. 1996. ”What Voters Learn about the Media”. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 546: 34-47.

29.

Zaller, John R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.

30.

Zerbinos, E. 1993. ”Talk Radio: Motivation or Titilation?“ Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the Association for Education in Joumalism and Mass Communication.