Here’s one for all of you who get interested in number crunching (DB, I’m lookin’ at you!): The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has released a new study about audience demographics for various forms of news consumption. The results of the study are pretty long, but skimming over the tables yielded some interesting tidbits. I think this table made me smile the most (click on the image to enlarge it):
As has been reported before, this shows that the audiences for both The Colbert Report and The Daily Show have a higher proportion of young, well-educated and (relatively) well-informed individuals than do many other news outlets. With respect to the audience’s age, elsewhere in the report, the Pew Center observes:
“The audiences for radio and cable talk shows tend to be dominated by older Americans, with two notable exceptions – the Colbert Report and the Daily Show. Fully 43% of Colbert’s regular viewers are younger than 30, as are 42% of Stewart’s regular viewers. That is roughly double the proportion of people younger than 30 in the general public (21%).”
I can issue all the usual disclaimers and caveats about the extent to which we should consider those boys of Comedy Central “newsmen”, but I’d rather focus for now on the fact that they do appeal to younger viewers as well as the older ones, and without treating their viewers as idiots. I think that’s an incredibly important ability in engaging people, at whatever age, in the news of the world around them.
Stephen and Jon are trying to make us laugh, first and foremost, and they succeed quite brilliantly at it, but I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for making their comedy so intelligent. For all the jokes based on bodily functions and/or silly graphics, there’s a lot of newsy material mixed in with the laughter, and that’s both informative and engaging. There are days when the only way I can handle hearing about some of the depressing stories in the news is if it’s mixed into a healthy dose of jokes and/or satire; I kind of think of it like someone hiding medicine inside of a dog treat and feeding it to the family pet.
So Stephen, Jon, everyone: Thanks for making my daily ration of news so palatable. I do my best to consume news stories of the day on my own but, particularly when the world is looking grim, you are absolute necessities.
P.S. That such a small percentage of people can correctly answer the three questions posed (who the current Secretary of State is, which party holds the Congressional majority, and who the current Prime Minister of Great Britain is) hurts my soul. I can’t say I’m surprised, but it’s excruciating, nonetheless.
Not bad for a bunch of “stoned slackers”… again.
I found this piece on TV Barn an interesting comment on this pew study and the NYT piece you blogged about earlier.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
So much for being “complete dunderheads” eh, Billo?
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
I really, really wish I could be surprised that such a small percentage could correctly answer those three questions? But my mind keeps flashing back to The Chaser’s “on the streets of America” pop quizzes.
Name a county that begins with ‘U’:
“Yugoslavia?”
“Utah!”
“Utopia.”
What’s the religion of Israel?
“Israeli.”
“Muslim.”
“Islamic.”
“Catholic, probably.”
What religion are Buddhist monks?
“… Islamic, I dunno.”
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
It’s answers like those that make me want to bang a social studies book over a few heads. Maybe they’ll pick up some of those answers via osmosis ;)
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
The answer “Utopia” made me laugh out loud. ;D
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
One of these days, whenever I actually am able to teach (still waiting for a job…) I really do want to encourage my (older) students to get their news from any source, even if it is TDS or TCR. So long as they are aware there’s a whole world beyond their hometown (and they should be, considering this podunk town I’m in!), that’s all I ask. Besides, I think they’d get a kick out of not only watching TDS/TCR (hopefully they get it, too), but out of having a teacher who encourages them to do so. I can already see the pink slips coming! Hahaha…
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
My 7th grade Social Studies teacher “made” us watch one of the national news broadcasts each night, and quizzed us about the news the next day. This was in a Catholic school back in the Watergate era. I wonder how such insistence would go over with parents now.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
I, too, had to do current events; I want to say I did it half the time I was in grade school. I’m not sure how parents would react these days, either; I’d hope they’d encourage their kids to follow through. Of course, I try to balance my rampant cynicism with cautious optimism ;)
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
Hear hear for the intelligent folks! I’d quite like to know what those questions are.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
the questions were:
Who is the Secretary of State?
Which party is in control of Congress?
Who is the new Prime Minister of Great Britain?
(they’re listed deep in the survey results and also a news article I read.)
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
They’re also in my post. :)
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
hahah, oops. :)
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
i remember doing current events in elementary school (4th grade). it was during the crisis in kosovo and all the ethnic cleansing going on there. i remember not understanding a dang thing.
later on in high school when i was of a more capable mind, we never even touched current events until senior year, and then it was all about hurricane katrina and after a while we realized we were mentioning the same event over and over.
ironically, its TDS/TCR that got me to get more informed and keep up with the news, and that’s when i realized how soul-crushing the news can be. so glad TDS/TCR is there to balance it out.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
our current events discussions from HS were constantly hindered by people spouting off extremely partisan viewpoints on both sides, and using the same cliched arguments. they were very truthy about it really, because whether the facts supported them or not, they were glad to fight about it. I have to believe almost none of the kids watched TDS or else they’d have been ashamed of themselves.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0