Bryon Daly wrote: > Yes. I believe that there are misperceptions *regarding the > Iraq War and > surrounding events* that are propagated (or at least not > debunked) by the > media, in the same way that Fox News is blamed for the pro-war > misconceptions. Or do you think that the anti-war side has a 100% > clear-eyed lock on all the facts, so there could be no > misperceptions there?
Oh heavens, no. The anti-war crowd enjoys as varied a composition as the pro-war crowd and there are enough don't-care-enough-to-check-out-available-facts/lunatics on both the sides. However, I really can't think of a single anti-war misperception propogated by the media and I could easily bring to mind all the ones discussed in this study *before* I read the study. If you could think of any anti-war misperceptions, we can talk about them too. :) > From the pdf, apparently that's what the sruveyors think: > They have a bar > chart listing a low support percentage for the war among > those with "no > misperceptions". Really, none at all? Maybe they meant 'not these misperceptions'...? > The implication > being, of course, > that very few people who have their facts straight supported > the war, and > those that did support it are hapless dupes, misled by the > White House and > the evilly complicit Fox News. Um, if we remove words like 'evil' and 'hapless dupes', isn't that a fair summation of what actually happened? The Bush administration did make misleading statements [some of which have been retracted in the last few months], overhyped the threat from Iraq and the US media didn't really seem to give too much space or time to the opposing viewpoints. I could be mistaken, of course, but that did seem to be the case. > I probably would have been clearer to say anti-war > misperceptions. If > they're going to cover media bias regarding the Iraq war, I > think they need > to cover both sides. Otherwise, how can we know that the > finger they point > at Fox News would not be equally deserved by other media as well. I > personally suspect it would be. This is something I know very little about actually but my impression was that the debate/criticism in the US media started *after* the major combat operations were over. Until then, the media, the Congress and a vast majority of the US citizens seemed to be solidly behind Bush and his Iraq mission. > As it stands, the survey mainly shows that people watching > pro-war news are > more likely to have pro-war misperceptions. Wouldn't you > expect the inverse > to also follow? Oh certainly. I think the relevant question here might be the amount of anti-war news available in the US before Bush's dramatic landing on that carrier. > Some of both. And by politically motivated, I'm thinking > more along the > issue line rather than party line. Ie: I think people who > are pro war can > be more inclined to pick up pro-war misconceptions (than > anti-war people > would) because they boost their existing belief. And exactly > the opposite > for anti-war people. That is almost always the case anyway: one does tend to filter information through the prism of one's beliefs. > I suspect that the stance of > some of the > media itself would be different if it was a Democrat project. I also > suspect that these people wouldn't be doing this survey in that case. I am not so sure about that. This issue seems to be bigger than partisan politics. An entire country was mobilised to war, the reasons given by the govt. for waging this war have not exactly been proven correct and the reasons why this mobilisation was possible do need to be investigated. At least that is how it looks to me. Ritu _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
