ABSTRACT
In a seminal essay, Dimock and Popkin (1997) drew upon evidence showing that Americans are less informed than the citizens of four European countries about international affairs. A key reason for this, they suggested, was that American citizens were not as well briefed on international news by their television service as Europeans. “If American TV news viewers are abysmally ignorant,” Dimock and Popkin wrote, “some of the fault lies with American television news. Part of the reason Americans are less informed is that American TV is the least informative ….” (Dimock and Popkin 1997: 223).
