Date of Award
4-2017
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Political Science
First Advisor
Dr. Patrick Donnay
Abstract
A democracy needs an informed public. However, I investigate low levels of political awareness among Americans. I focus on whether people understand issues incorrectly or are simply disengaged and inattentive. There is an important difference between them. Those who are uninformed simply do not know, which would make it easier to turn them into informed citizens. All that would be needed is for them to access the right information. For those who are misinformed, however, it is a tougher task. They believe that their answer is right, and even though they are in fact wrong, they are more willing to fight the truth in order to validate what they feel is the right answer. I analyze this phenomenon with Public Mind Polling data from Fairleigh Dickinson University. I anticipate my results to show that less use of news media will decrease a person’s level of knowledge and increase their degree of disengagement, while loyalty to a limited number of media sources is likely to increase a person’s level of misinformation.
Recommended Citation
Priest, Kyle, "Churchill’s Argument Against Democracy: The Average Voter. Information Levels and News Sources among Americans" (2017). Political Science Theses and Capstones. 57.
https://pines.bemidjistate.edu/capstone-polisci/57
Included in
American Politics Commons, Broadcast and Video Studies Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Information Literacy Commons, Journalism Studies Commons, Mass Communication Commons, Social Influence and Political Communication Commons
