<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>There is considerable evidence that many people generally misperceive the size of the immigrant population in their country, and that this may have essential political implications. In studies of political knowledge, the news media are typically said to be one important source of information that can help make people more knowledgeable. In the present article, we investigate whether there is a relationship between TV viewing, media system variations and knowledge about immigration. We base our analysis on highly comparable data from the 2002-2003 wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) and an American replication of the ESS. The results indicate that TV viewing in general is associated with lower levels of knowledge, while there is a positive but non-significant relationship between watching TV news and knowledge about immigration. Differences in the levels of knowledge between the countries are fairly large, with residents of Nordic countries being most knowledgeable and residents of the UK, US and France tending to be least knowledgeable. Aggregate explanations for variations in media influence (share of public service TV and “media systems”) do not prove to be of much value in explaining differences in knowledge about the sizes of immigrant populations.</p></abstract>

There is considerable evidence that many people generally misperceive the size of the immigrant population in their country, and that this may have essential political implications. In studies of political knowledge, the news media are typically said to be one important source of information that can help make people more knowledgeable. In the present article, we investigate whether there is a relationship between TV viewing, media system variations and knowledge about immigration. We base our analysis on highly comparable data from the 2002-2003 wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) and an American replication of the ESS. The results indicate that TV viewing in general is associated with lower levels of knowledge, while there is a positive but non-significant relationship between watching TV news and knowledge about immigration. Differences in the levels of knowledge between the countries are fairly large, with residents of Nordic countries being most knowledgeable and residents of the UK, US and France tending to be least knowledgeable. Aggregate explanations for variations in media influence (share of public service TV and “media systems”) do not prove to be of much value in explaining differences in knowledge about the sizes of immigrant populations.

Media Use and Misperceptions

Dr.polit., Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology / NTNU, Trondheim

Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology / NTNU, Trondheim

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Does TV Viewing Improve our Knowledge about Immigration?

There is considerable evidence that many people generally misperceive the size of the immigrant population in their country, and that this may have essential...

Media Use and Misperceptions

Published Online: Jan 30, 2017

Page range: 35 - 52

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0119

Keywords
immigration, political knowledge, media exposure, public TV, media systems

© 2010 Toril Aalberg et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Media Use and Misperceptions

Published Online: Jan 30, 2017

Page range: 35 - 52

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0119

Keywordsimmigration, political knowledge, media exposure, public TV, media systems

© 2010 Toril Aalberg et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
immigration, political knowledge, media exposure, public TV, media systems