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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jul 17.
Published in final edited form as: J Public Econ. 2016 Oct 27;144:91–108. doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.10.004

Table 1.

Belief and political knowledge by level of news consumption

Panel A: Global-warming beliefs
Reads newspaper daily Does not read newspaper daily Difference N
Solid evidence of global warming 0.7124 (0.0161) 0.6819 (0.0175) 0.0305 (0.0238) 1500
Subsample:
 Democrats only 0.8281 (0.0235) 0.7888 (0.0263) 0.0393 (0.0353) 501
 Independents only 0.7046 (0.0296) 0.7058 (0.0307) −0.0011 (0.0426) 460
 Republicans only 0.6130 (0.0306) 0.5497 (0.0355) 0.0633 (0.0469) 451
Panel B: Political knowledge
Reads newspaper daily Does not read newspaper daily Difference N
US House majority 0.6118 (0.0105) 0.4332 (0.0131) 0.1786 (0.0167) 3609
US Secretary of State 0.5003 (0.0107) 0.3343 (0.0124) 0.1660 (0.0164) 3609
British Prime Minister 0.3450 (0.0102) 0.1972 (0.0105) 0.1479 (0.0146) 3609
Share of political questions correct 0.4857 (0.0079) 0.3216 (0.0090) 0.1641 (0.0120) 3609
p-value of test that global-warming difference is equal to political-knowledge difference 0.0000

Note: Data are from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2013). Data in panel A come from the June News Interest/Believability Survey (June 2006). The “reads newspaper daily” column consists of those who answer “yes” to the question “Some people are so busy that they don’t get to read a newspaper every day. How about you – do you get a chance to read a newspaper just about every day, or not?” The “solid evidence of global warming” rows report respectively the fraction of all respondents, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans who answer “yes” to the question “From what you’ve read and heard, is there solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades, or not?” Democrats, Independents, and Republicans respectively consist of those who answer “Democrat”, “Independent”, and “Republican” to the question “In politics today, do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat, or Independent?” Data in panel B come from the Biennial Media Consumption Survey (April 2008). The “reads newspaper daily” column consists of those who answer “yes” to the question “Do you happen to read any daily newspapers regularly, or not?” The “US House majority” row reports the fraction of respondents who answer “Yes, Democrat” to the question Do you happen to know which political party has a majority in the US House of Representatives?” The “US Secretary of State” row reports the fraction of respondents who answer “Yes, Condoleezza Rice/Condi/Rice” to the question “Can you tell me the name of the current US Secretary of State?” The “British Prime Minister” row reports the fraction of respondents who answer “Gordon Brown” to the question “Who is the current prime minister of Great Britain?” The “share of political questions correct” row is the share correct across the three political knowledge questions. The last row reports the p-value of the test that the global-warming difference is equal to the difference in the share of political questions correct. All calculations use recommended sample weights. Standard errors are reported in parentheses.