Group items tagged

Teens, Video Games, and Civics

"The way the public gets news continues to change with digital - and especially mobile forms - gaining audiences. Some shifts raise questions about the amount and quality of news consumed. All that leads to the crucial question of what people know about major public issues. Last week's Pew study on the Affordable Care Act didn't inspire confidence in the public's knowledge of news. Pew's survey found that "44% of Americans are unsure whether ACA remains the law. About three-in-ten (31%) say they don't know, while 8% think it has been repealed by Congress and 5% believe it was overturned by the Supreme Court." Should we cheer because more than half those surveyed (57%) knew that the law is being implemented? Should we allow slack for those who didn't know, since the Act is complicated and changes have been made and proposed? Is the study evidence of separate and unequal societies, one informed and one uninformed? To get a better sense of how the public is consuming news, and how journalists can best reach them, it's helpful to look at some data. Recent studies tracking news consumption could leave the impression we've moved from well-rounded civic information meals to fast-food news snacking."