Slashdot Mirror
Study Finds Google Is More Trusted Than Traditional Media
According to a study by market research company Zogby International, people trust Google, Apple, and Microsoft more than the traditional media. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter scored lowest on the trust scale, but still soundly beat the media. From the article: "The traditional media received little sympathy from the public, with only eight percent of all adults and six percent of young adults saying they trusted them."
When the entire public hates the media with such passion as it seems to do now, shouldn't that be a sign to the powers that be that the system needs to be reworked? I know some people are deathly afraid of The Fairness Doctrine, but do you honestly believe our country could be more divided, mislead, and corporate-controlled than it is now? I certainly don't.
Now I can write off Zogby International as a half assed, two bit of a chump market research company. So who paid for this research, Google, Apple or Microsoft?
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Blasphemy you say! I've actually been actively weaning myself from Google recently. My stance is that you have all your data hostage unless you maintain active backups with a remote host (Google).
What have you done? What do you recommend? How do you become more self sufficient? Google are getting to big to be benevolent: they own Recaptcha, so even if you block Analytics, they have additional analytics from that.
They know who you are, where you live, what you think, who you're communicating with, where you're trying to go, what websites you're a member of, what you're trying to find out, what you're buying, what news you've been exposed to.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
Bias isn't a reason not to trust a media source -- assuming you know they are biased. I completely trust Murduch's outlets, because I know they are biased and can read through it. That doesn't mean I agree with them, just that I know I can rely on the info to be biased in a certain way, and thus have an indication of truth, at the very least.
It's much, much harder with media that claims to be unbiased, but of course, is -- because all of them are. The BBC being the perfect example. They claim to be unbiased, but are very much not. It is, however, often hard to tell what their underlying spin is. Thus, I would never ever trust one single thing they say.
The article makes no sense. "Trust" in what way? It hints that they're talking about "trust" in the context of your private information, and not as a news source, but doesn't go out and say it. Also, Google is not a source of original information. It compiles news and repackages it from ... well, from traditional news sources.
Yeah, the study sounds almost as flawed as the summary of it. Trusting Google more than traditional media is almost completely a non-sequitur. Google isn't of itself a source of news. There's Google News that aggregates articles from news sites, but Google doesn't have its own news bureau. The comparison between Google and "traditional media" implies that people were ranking Google as a news provider against traditional news sources, where in actuality that wasn't the comparison at all.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
I tend to disagree. A consistently biased news source is one that deliberately attempts to mislead its users. The trouble is that you don't necessarily know what the bias is on any particular subnject, or when that bias changes. All you know is that the data is unlikely to be reliable as presented.
As such, the rational thing to do is distrust the baised source.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
"The Media" is such a loaded phrase these days, that it's no surprise nobody "trusts" them. Years of politicians and everyone else slamming "traditional media", "Big media", "The Liberal Media", and "The Right-wing Media" mean that everyone associates "The Media" with whatever group they disagree with.
I simplify it even more.
Look at the approval ratings for 'congress'. They've been dipping into the single digits lately. Yet ask people about their representative/senator, it's pretty much guaranteed to be at least double that of 'congress'.
Ask about Fox News, NBC, CNN, BBC, etc... You'll get higher numbers.
I don't read AC A human right
I'm not sure what your point wrt Enderle is. There are several predictions in that article, all of which are correct, but with some caveats.
Apparently, Enderle said that Apple would switch to Intel chips by the end of 2003. He also said it would use Windows. He was wrong about the year (it was 2006), but Apple computers now run Windows as an option, and they are Intel chips.
Enderle predicted Apple would make smaller, cheaper ipods based on flash memory. Right on all counts.
He predicted that Apple would make an ipod that played video. Right again.
Obviously, he was wrong about the timelines on most (all?) of these, but overall, I'd say that's a pretty impressive record. I certainly wouldn't have called the ipod moving to flash in 2003; at least, not for a long while. I also wouldn't have called Apple moving to x86. He was two years early on the first one and three on the second.
Anyway, I don't think you were trying to imply that this poll is something that's insulted by short-sighted blogs, but is just a little ahead of its time. Maybe you meant it's the Fox News of polling?
Mainstream media is distrusted with good reason. It isn't just the bias that everyone knows is there.
Its that they've been caught, not once but several times, reporting stories they knew or should have known were false, as fact, because the stories in question supported that bias.
Spin real news according to your bias, and I'll listen and filter accordingly. Lie to me outright, and I'll never trust you again.