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Political Savvy?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Monday, October 21, 2002 Posted: 7:18 AM EDT (1118 GMT)
LONDON, England -- One in 10 Britons cannot name a world leader, including their own, pointing to a nation "dumbing down," a survey says.
Britons proved to be more switched on to television soap stars than politics, forcing Whitaker's, who commissioned the survey, to call for a new look at the way current affairs is presented in the UK.
Eleven percent of Britons questioned could not name a single world leader, but nearly half can list five characters in the BBC soap hit EastEnders.
And as Britain gears up, alongside the U.S., for a possible military strike against Iraq, Albert Square's Phil Mitchell (An Eastenders character) is almost twice as well known in the UK as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The best known world leaders were UK Prime Minister Tony Blair (83% percent) and U.S. President George W. Bush (82%).
But only 25% could name Saddam. Others on the list included the presidents of France, Jacques Chirac (23%); Russia, Vladimir Putin (16%); Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe (6%); and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (6%).
Whitaker's has written to the government calling for a review of all news gathering.
Lauren Hill, Editor of Whitaker's Almanac which carried out the survey entitled "Is Britain Dumbing Down?", told the UK's Press Association: "These results are concerning and we can only conclude from this report that Britain certainly is 'dumbing down'.
"The population has become fanatical about celebrities. With major political and international news continuously on the agenda, we believe that the government has a key role to play in encouraging people to become more interested in current affairs and the world around us."
Reality game shows emphasised their popularity with more people (25 percent) being able to name the winner of the latest Channel 4's Big Brother, Kate Lawler, than key figures in the British Cabinet including John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, and Gordon Brown, Chancellor, (both 24 percent).
Asked to name five current Cabinet members, 42 percent could not come up with one.
The lack of political knowledge could be attributed to an unwillingness to keep up to date with current affairs, especially among women.
Only 8 percent of women could name five world leaders, compared with 17 percent of men.
Nine percent of the 1,000 people questioned admitted to never watching, listening or reading the news.
People were more likely to regularly watch soaps, reality TV and sitcoms (86 percent) than spend an hour a day watching news (51 percent), the survey found.
When asked to name characters from EastEnders, 63 percent of those surveyed named at least one and 46% named five.
Top of the list was Phil Mitchell (44 percent), followed by Mark Fowler (40 percent), Pauline Fowler (30 percent), Peggy Mitchell (28 percent) and Lisa Fowler (24 percent).
Hill has written to Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. Hill added: "There is so much information out there and we feel people should be encouraged to go out and grab it with both hands.
"As a result of this research, we are writing to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for a review of all news programming."
And some would privatize the BBC?
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Comments
Don't bet on it.....
Ever seen the Peter's Projection of maps, or the Universal Corrective Map of the World? It's somewhat distorted. It's upside down, for a start, with the n. hemisphere in the south, and the southern hemisphere on the top of the map, and it's centred on Australia...
When asked to identify the US, most high schoolers asked pointed to either China or Australia, because it was big and roughly central....
*sighs*
Quotes from the "This is London" article.
Alternatively, "90% of Britons can name at least one world leader, whilst half cannot name at least 5 characters from EastEnders."
Alternatively, "91% of adult Britains watch, listen to or read the news."
They claim this is evidence of "dumbing down", but we have no comparitive figures for previous years from which we have dumbed. I'd be willing to bet that if you did the same survey in 1900 the population would have appeared considerably dumber. I doubt that it would have been above the current levels at any time since.
I feel that people should have an interest in current affairs and politics, but I don't think they should be forced to or criticised if they don't. It's a personal choice. The article is just a good example of presenting statistics in a very one-sided manner.
This will probably send shivers through onenatcons' spine but I believe the State has an obligation to broadcast current affairs programmes, even if the watchers don't want it to watch them. In pretty much the same way as the obligation to give our children an education.
Good comment Vox populi, vox Dei. I think your comments sum up pretty much what i thought when this was pointed out to me....
"...and now we know there is at least 1 journalist that cannot read and interpret statistics."
25% recognise Saddam!:eek:
Good God!
Is this one of these:
So what if we're thick/ nasty /ugly /fundamentalist
cos you lot are too threads?
Using a poll from the Daily Mail? How clever is that?
:crazyeyes
And if it's true, I blame the american multi-nationals that are taking over private education!
http://www.theroc.org/updates/pepsi.htm
Isn't corporatism wonderful
A little anecdote, in an American high school, 40 children were asked who won the US war of independance, who was the British prime minister during world war 2, and who the US president was. The only person to get all 3 correct was the only British child in the class.
Greenhat, instead of pointing out that 90% of British people are able to name a world leader, instead try and work out why 90% of Americans will never leave your country, have decided why not wearing a seatbelt is a good idea, and have no idea how to tie their shoelaces.
If you do want to see Americans humiliate themselves, just type "examples of American stupidity" into a search engine. On Google I got a return of 21,700 websites in 0.14 seconds
and if you believe that bullshit, then I have some really prime real estate in the Everglades which you might develop into a resort...
So, you think privatizing the BBC is a good idea?
BBC should remain public, someone mentioned the whole BBC thing as a joke.
Sopite, what are you on about? The Everglades being a crocodile infested swamp in Florida, oh wait, was this some sort of clever statement? Sorry for ruining it.
Anybody else think onenads was joking?
you take that seriously?
I assume you completely missed the other thread, huh?