Media Choice and Response Patterns to Questions About Political Knowledge

Abstract

Previous studies have examined not only whether people answer correctly to questions about political knowledge, but also whether “don’t know” (DK) is a response that implies low self-confidence in their knowledge. However, while it has become clear that different people have accurate knowledge in different topics, there has been little discussion of whether knowledge on specific facts promotes self-confidence. Furthermore, it is believed that people learn about politics through news media, but it is unclear whether the type of media consumption correlates with patterns of correct, incorrect, or DK responses on political knowledge questions. We conducted a survey that asks about knowledge on a variety of topics, such as the political system and current affairs, to (1) categorize patterns of correct, incorrect, and DK answers, and (2) examine their relationship to media choices. We find that those who read newspapers or online news are more knowledgeable about the political system and tend not to choose DK even on questions about knowledge they do not know accurately. In contrast, those who gain knowledge of current issues from watching TV have less confidence in their knowledge and answer DK to questions for which they do not know the correct answer.