Cali Fitzgerald blog post #5
Have you ever wondered how much your fellow Americans know about world news? Before reading this post, take this quiz to see how your knowledge of news compares with those around you!http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/the-news-iq-quiz/
With everything going on in the world, you would think the news stations would be covering foreign affairs nonstop. But, this is not the case in America. Turn on the news at night, and you are likely to find a simple story about a town hero to lift your spirits. While this boost of happiness is great, it's not what the news is there for. News stations are meant to inform the people on what is happening around them. Instead, news stations seem to care more about their viewers' ratings than updating their viewers on important matters.
The "News IQ Quiz" linked above not only tests Americans' knowledge on issues overseas like ISIS, but it also quizzes Americans on more local facts like minimum wage ($7.25) and Common Core. The average American you are being compared to when you take the quiz was interviewed over the telephone between the dates September 25th and 28th of 2014. A total of 1,002 adults over 18 were interviewed, and it was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source and MKTG under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. I would have liked teenagers under the age of 18 to be interviewed as well in order to see if they know the news better than those who are older. The average number of correct answers is five and older adults seem to know more about the news than younger adults ages 18-29. If you would like to know more about the results, go to http://www.people-press.org/2014/10/02/from-isis-to-unemployment-what-do-americans-know/
I agree with you in that I would have wanted people under the age of eighteen to take the quiz as they are usually the ones on social media and social media is known for allowing everyone access to the news in a click or a swipe. Wouldn't that be frightening if the people not even given the right to vote knowing more about the problems the world is facing rather than the people who are actually in "charge" being the ones that know. Maybe that is why they weren't asked to take this quiz because who wouldn't be unsettled by the fact of the youth of a nation paying more attention to the world instead of its adults who would rather only care about themselves and their own little bubble they created. Also the older adults knowing more can relate to the way their generation was raised and they grew up hearing about the world constantly were as in today's 18-29 generation has been to me at least uninformed and filled with what the news is today which is filled with celebrities and other pointless television shows.
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