People expect to hear accurate and fact-based information from the media, but according to recent research, that might not be what they’re getting.
Brian Weeks, a doctoral student in the Ohio State U. School of Communication, conducted a study on Barack Obama’s supposed Muslim beliefs, rumors of which surfaced during summer 2008.
“We wanted to see if there was a relationship between topics discussed on the news and people’s information-seeking behavior,” Weeks said.
With Brian Southwell associate professor in journalism at U. Minnesota, Weeks examined news coverage of the rumor on seven major television networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC and PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and in about 30 newspapers from all across the country, from June 1, 2008, through the Nov. 4 election.
“From this search, we were able to determine the amount of coverage on television and in newspapers for each day in our time period,” Weeks said. “Using Google Trends, we looked at the volume of online searches about the rumor conducted on Google for each day.”
By using statistical procedures, Weeks said they were able to assess the relationship between television and newspaper coverage and Internet searches of the rumor.
Their results suggested that television coverage and searches were significantly related. As the amount of television coverage of the rumor increased, so did Google searches on that same day, Weeks said.
Reports by the Pew Research Center survey show that about 18 percent of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, Weeks said.
OSU political science lecturer Charles Smith said there are more variables that come into play, and viewers need to consider numerous sources of information.
“The part about 18 percent (of Americans) believing Barack Obama was a Muslim, well you got more people believing Big Foot is real,” Smith said. “What are we listening to? Where are we getting that information? I’m betting it’s coming from Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or right-winged radio.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s political expression, but you’ve got to look at where people are getting their information.”
Stephen McCloskey, a university employee, said he heard about the Muslim rumor through the media and, as a result, began his own research.
“I heard people give their theories (about Obama). I heard someone say when he took an oath of office he swore on the Quran,” McCloskey said. “So I checked that.”
McCloskey said he verifies facts only when he feels they are inconsistent with previous knowledge.
Weeks said none of the broadcast networks said the rumor was true, but that didn’t matter.
“The argument that we were making was about the presentation on TV,” Weeks said. “If you think about the way a lot of these shows are shown, especially on cable, the format is one in which they bring on a pundit from one side of the political aisle, then another from the other side, and then throw out a question and let them debate.”
It was a debate that sparked Weeks’ research.
“I was having a conversation, and we were talking about the election,” Weeks said. “It came out from a friend that Obama is Muslim, and everyone looked at him and asked where he heard that. He said, ‘Well, I saw it on TV.'”
However, TV isn’t the only medium credited for influencing the public.
“It can be movies, prime-time TV, rap songs. It can be any media. You have to widen up the definition of media to find out where people are getting their ideas from,” Smith said. “That’s why more people believe in Big Foot.”