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Uninformed: Why People Seem to Know So Little about Politics and What We Can Do about It
Research polls, media interviews, and everyday conversations reveal an unsettling truth: citizens, while well-meaning and even passionate about current affairs, appear to know very little about politics. Hundreds of surveys document vast numbers of citizens answering even basic questions about government incorrectly. Given this unfortunate state of affairs, it is not surprising that more knowledgeable people often deride the public for its ignorance. Some experts even think that less informed citizens should stay out of politics altogether.
As Arthur Lupia shows in Uninformed, this is not constructive. At root, critics of public ignorance fundamentally misunderstand the problem. Many experts believe that simply providing people with more facts will make them more competent voters. However, these experts fail to understand how most people learn, and hence don't really know what types of information are even relevant to voters. Feeding them information they don't find relevant does not address the problem. In other words, before educating the public, we need to educate the educators.
Lupia offers not just a critique, though; he also has solutions. Drawing from a variety of areas of research on topics like attention span and political psychology, he shows how we can actually increase issue competence among voters in areas ranging from gun regulation to climate change. To attack the problem, he develops an arsenal of techniques to effectively convey to people information they actually care about.
Citizens sometimes lack the knowledge that they need to make competent political choices, and it is undeniable that greater knowledge can improve decision making. But we need to understand that voters either don't care about or pay attention to much of the information that experts think is important. Uninformed provides the keys to improving political knowledge and civic competence: understanding what information is important to others and knowing how to best convey it to them.
As Arthur Lupia shows in Uninformed, this is not constructive. At root, critics of public ignorance fundamentally misunderstand the problem. Many experts believe that simply providing people with more facts will make them more competent voters. However, these experts fail to understand how most people learn, and hence don't really know what types of information are even relevant to voters. Feeding them information they don't find relevant does not address the problem. In other words, before educating the public, we need to educate the educators.
Lupia offers not just a critique, though; he also has solutions. Drawing from a variety of areas of research on topics like attention span and political psychology, he shows how we can actually increase issue competence among voters in areas ranging from gun regulation to climate change. To attack the problem, he develops an arsenal of techniques to effectively convey to people information they actually care about.
Citizens sometimes lack the knowledge that they need to make competent political choices, and it is undeniable that greater knowledge can improve decision making. But we need to understand that voters either don't care about or pay attention to much of the information that experts think is important. Uninformed provides the keys to improving political knowledge and civic competence: understanding what information is important to others and knowing how to best convey it to them.
358 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2015
About the author
Arthur Lupia
7 books"Arthur Lupia conducts research on topics relevant to politics and policy including voting, elections, persuasion, opinion change, civic education, coalition governance, legislative-bureaucratic relationships and decision-making under uncertainty. His books, articles and editorials address these topics by integrating insights from his interactions with mass and elite decision makers with tools and concepts from cognitive science, economics, political science, and psychology."
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 9, 2016
Well, it's official: this is the most boring book I have ever read. The title itself is misleading, because at first glance you might think it's a book about the voting populace being ignorant of relevant facts on important issues. AU CONTRAIRE. It's a critique of political polling and the conclusions that pollsters and the media draw about political ignorance.
Okay, fine. Fair point. Some widely-trumpeted statistics on public knowledge are hugely misleading. There's an interesting book to be written on that subject, but that book will not be written by Arthur Lupia. This is a tedious, repetitive, insultingly repetitive, stultifyingly repetitive and never-ending barrage of abstracted language employed to make very tiny points over the course of dozens of pages, with only a paucity of real-world examples.
Lupia's goal is to improve the efforts of educators, but at the end of the book I still have no idea who the intended audience is. There's a chapter that's supposed to answer the question of who these amorphous "educators" are, but the best summary of his definition is that educators are people "who want to increase other people's knowledge about politics or their competence at a politically relevant task" (barf). And yet, he goes to great lengths to let us know that there are no specifics facts that are universally capable of increasing political knowledge, and that no such list of facts exists, so there's really no reliable criteria by which to measure political knowledge, because voters may have other methods of achieving the same tasks (ie, voting productively).
And even then, who's to say which vote is "correct" on a given issue? Lupia certainly can't answer that question, and often makes "educators" sound more like "manipulators" geared toward achieving a particular political outcome. He also spends a lot of time critiquing interview-style studies that rate the public's political knowledge (which he insists on calling "PK" all throughout the book, making me think of psychokinesis), which he finds better than using recall-based questioning, but still unreliable. There's a lot of shop talk about political polling statistics that would only be relevant to other professional political polling statisticians, but interesting to no one.
The abstracted use of language is extremely irritating, with very few examples given to reify nebulous concepts. It's just bad writing. He uses the term "necessary and sufficient conditions", or some variant of that phrase, 192 times throughout the book. Each time, I had to stop and think about the meaning of "necessary" vs "sufficient", conjure a real world example, and then try to apply that to what he was saying.
I'm going to put myself to sleep summing this up, so I'll cut to the chase. Lupia makes some valid points, but could have presented them all in the space of a single chapter. Multiple chapters tell you what he plans to cover in the entire book, then a bullet point list at the beginning of each chapter describes what he'll cover in the next two chapters, outlining each sub-section of each chapter (12A through 12E), then you get to read the actual chapter in excruciating, boring detail, and then a summary with more bullet points and a preview of what is to come in the next chapter. Just write the freakin' book, dude. Say what you're going to say and get it over with. At one point he even says that he doesn't expect anyone to actually read the entire book, so I guess he feels the endless summarizing is a great way to catch the people who just drop in for a single chapter. At another point he thanks us for having read as far as we have. You're not welcome, Lupia.
Okay, fine. Fair point. Some widely-trumpeted statistics on public knowledge are hugely misleading. There's an interesting book to be written on that subject, but that book will not be written by Arthur Lupia. This is a tedious, repetitive, insultingly repetitive, stultifyingly repetitive and never-ending barrage of abstracted language employed to make very tiny points over the course of dozens of pages, with only a paucity of real-world examples.
Lupia's goal is to improve the efforts of educators, but at the end of the book I still have no idea who the intended audience is. There's a chapter that's supposed to answer the question of who these amorphous "educators" are, but the best summary of his definition is that educators are people "who want to increase other people's knowledge about politics or their competence at a politically relevant task" (barf). And yet, he goes to great lengths to let us know that there are no specifics facts that are universally capable of increasing political knowledge, and that no such list of facts exists, so there's really no reliable criteria by which to measure political knowledge, because voters may have other methods of achieving the same tasks (ie, voting productively).
And even then, who's to say which vote is "correct" on a given issue? Lupia certainly can't answer that question, and often makes "educators" sound more like "manipulators" geared toward achieving a particular political outcome. He also spends a lot of time critiquing interview-style studies that rate the public's political knowledge (which he insists on calling "PK" all throughout the book, making me think of psychokinesis), which he finds better than using recall-based questioning, but still unreliable. There's a lot of shop talk about political polling statistics that would only be relevant to other professional political polling statisticians, but interesting to no one.
The abstracted use of language is extremely irritating, with very few examples given to reify nebulous concepts. It's just bad writing. He uses the term "necessary and sufficient conditions", or some variant of that phrase, 192 times throughout the book. Each time, I had to stop and think about the meaning of "necessary" vs "sufficient", conjure a real world example, and then try to apply that to what he was saying.
I'm going to put myself to sleep summing this up, so I'll cut to the chase. Lupia makes some valid points, but could have presented them all in the space of a single chapter. Multiple chapters tell you what he plans to cover in the entire book, then a bullet point list at the beginning of each chapter describes what he'll cover in the next two chapters, outlining each sub-section of each chapter (12A through 12E), then you get to read the actual chapter in excruciating, boring detail, and then a summary with more bullet points and a preview of what is to come in the next chapter. Just write the freakin' book, dude. Say what you're going to say and get it over with. At one point he even says that he doesn't expect anyone to actually read the entire book, so I guess he feels the endless summarizing is a great way to catch the people who just drop in for a single chapter. At another point he thanks us for having read as far as we have. You're not welcome, Lupia.
March 27, 2016
When I started reading this book, I thought I had been bait-and-switched. I got this book thinking that it would explain why so many Americans seem to know so little about politics and what can be done about it. Indeed, that is the question that this book sets out to answer, but not in the way I thought it would. First, Mr. Lupia attacks the notion that Americans (and citizens of other democratic nations) really are ignorant of basic political facts. He first points out that because people have different values over political issues (tax cuts, abortion, etc.) and that people can know the same political facts, but choose to support or oppose different proposals. He then points out that the surveys that seem to say that people are ignorant are either misinterpreted by the media and other scholars or are poorly structured or worded and, thus, don't always mean what the surveyors think they mean. It's an incredibly nuanced book on political knowledge and ignorance that may not be for everyone and doesn't offer any easy answers, but goes a long way to explaining how people can be better informed about politics and political issues. Part II, which dissects political knowledge surveys, was particularly enlightening in an already enlightening book. I would highly recommend this to anyone involved in politics and/or policy and is looking to persuade people about their point of view.
June 21, 2016
Excrutiating read that doesn't help. Election is in full swing and sometimes it's hard to discern what information is important, what is not, what is spin and what are the cold hard facts. Conspiracies, rigging, lies, smearing, where does it end? What is the problem? Do people have enough information? Not enough? Do they not know HOW to find the information? Do they not understand what to DO with the information they have? This book purports to discuss how and why knowledge is difficult and how to better inform the electorate.At least, that is what it said it would do. In all honesty, this book was an extremely excruciating read. It seems like a dense academic thesis that has the problem of starting too far into the basics: who the audience is, what are the definitions of terms like information and knowledge, etc. It then loses itself down to the nitty gritty that I'm not sure was really needed for this book.
In all honesty I got the impression that this book had been about something else (how people learn in general or absorb the news) and it got packaged into a book about political knowledge. Perhaps it's just me and the frame of mind I'm in but this seemed unbearably dry and academic. And that's the audience: other academics rather than pundits, news reporters, etc. That may have been the author's original purpose that somehow got side-tracked.
I think this book might have more value for others but I can't help but feel sorely disappointed. I borrowed this from the library and that was the right call.
In all honesty I got the impression that this book had been about something else (how people learn in general or absorb the news) and it got packaged into a book about political knowledge. Perhaps it's just me and the frame of mind I'm in but this seemed unbearably dry and academic. And that's the audience: other academics rather than pundits, news reporters, etc. That may have been the author's original purpose that somehow got side-tracked.
I think this book might have more value for others but I can't help but feel sorely disappointed. I borrowed this from the library and that was the right call.
May 2, 2016
a great book to recommend to any Trump Supporters
November 27, 2015
Even though it is aimed at the American market, this book should chime with people in UK.
The knowledge of the general public towards politics is generally formed from biased newspaper proprieters with their own agendas.
Politics should be taught in schools as early as possible in a child's life.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
The knowledge of the general public towards politics is generally formed from biased newspaper proprieters with their own agendas.
Politics should be taught in schools as early as possible in a child's life.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
May 5, 2017
Wow, what a dull way to talk about such an interesting subject. The author does major disservice to the topic of the book, with a very confused flow. I mean, I get that the book seems to be written for a largely American audience but some of the points are equally applicable everywhere.
However, the book reads like an utterly boring textbook and perhaps books like this one are the real reason why people know so little about politics.
However, the book reads like an utterly boring textbook and perhaps books like this one are the real reason why people know so little about politics.
August 16, 2016
The audiobook was the painfully dull equivalent of listening to someone read a PowerPoint presentation.
October 8, 2020
Uninformed Why People Seem to Know So Little about Politics and What We Can Do about It by Arthur Lupia is a study of the American political public and what can be done to improve the public's political knowledge. Lupia is the Hal R Varian Collegiate Professor of Political Science. He examines how people make decisions when they lack information and in how they manage complex information flows. He draws from multiple scientific and philosophical disciplines and uses multiple research methods. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from the California Institute of Technology and currently teaches at the University of Michigan.
Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Who is your state senator? Who presides over the senate? Chances are most people will not know the answers to these questions. We, as a nation, are ignorant of the system government. Although every four years, we campaign and vote for president, whom we do not directly elect. The candidates call each other names. We call those who oppose us Socialists or Nazis without fully understanding the words. It is turned into a sporting event on par with the Super Bowl -- Red versus Blue. My team is going to beat your team. "We are the job creators" ... "No, you are the war creators." We only believe certain news personalities, because they say what we want to hear...regardless of the truth. In fact, there are great numbers of people who are convinced to vote against their own interests. Last year a news story came out about the region with the highest Food Stamp usage. It was not Compton, Watts, Harlem, or the Southside of Chicago. It was Owsley County, Kentucky a region of 5,000 people 99% white and 92% Republican. The region was hit hard by a decline in coal, tobacco, and lumber and it has the lowest median household income in the United States. Yet the people helped vote in congressmen who cut their benefits. What causes that behavior especially on that scale?
Lupia goes through great lengths to explain what can be down. He uses studies and game theory to show his point. As far as educating the public on the form and process of government along with who was elected is spot on. The problem I see is educating the public on issues. First we tie issues to parties and assume all Democrats are liberal and all Republicans are conservative. A real conservative would not be Pro-Choice and for gun control unless he was "govinator" of California. Parties and the lack of party discipline present a problem. To complicate that there are even differences on party platform issues. Where do you fit if you are pro-life and oppose the death penalty? There are too many variables to arrive at concrete answers.
A problem I noticed is in educating people on issues. That becomes a very slippery slope. What separates an educator from a lobbyist or interest group (except for money)? We all have our own biases. Say, for example, I do not support GMO products. I conduct research, have studies done and proceed to educate the public. Monsanto with almost unlimited resources and political connections does the same. Whose message is going to have the most effect on educating the public? Another example. When did science find out that cigarette smoking is harmful compared to when cigarette companies finally admitted smoking was addictive and were sued? I am afraid money speaks more than education in American politics. Power/money trumps education almost every time.
One thing I was very happy to see in Uninformed is participation in local politics. The American public, in general, ignores local politics in favor of national politics. Your vote for president or senator is one amongst the voting population in your state. For example in Texas, there are about fourteen million registered voters so my vote for senator or electors to the electoral college is 1/14,000,000. My city councilman was elected with 251 out or 320 votes. My vote was 1/320. My vote in local elections carries much more weight. Also, if I could easily canvass the precinct for issues or candidates I supported. My effect would be much greater at local levels.
Uninformed takes on a herculean task of trying to educate the public on basics of government. Some of the information is very good and some seem to work well under controlled situations. There is one thing Lupia does well and that is to show we are very ignorant politically. We have given up reason in exchange for bread and circuses. We sit and watch as our country self-destructs, blaming the “other guys” rather than doing anything to fix it.
Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Who is your state senator? Who presides over the senate? Chances are most people will not know the answers to these questions. We, as a nation, are ignorant of the system government. Although every four years, we campaign and vote for president, whom we do not directly elect. The candidates call each other names. We call those who oppose us Socialists or Nazis without fully understanding the words. It is turned into a sporting event on par with the Super Bowl -- Red versus Blue. My team is going to beat your team. "We are the job creators" ... "No, you are the war creators." We only believe certain news personalities, because they say what we want to hear...regardless of the truth. In fact, there are great numbers of people who are convinced to vote against their own interests. Last year a news story came out about the region with the highest Food Stamp usage. It was not Compton, Watts, Harlem, or the Southside of Chicago. It was Owsley County, Kentucky a region of 5,000 people 99% white and 92% Republican. The region was hit hard by a decline in coal, tobacco, and lumber and it has the lowest median household income in the United States. Yet the people helped vote in congressmen who cut their benefits. What causes that behavior especially on that scale?
Lupia goes through great lengths to explain what can be down. He uses studies and game theory to show his point. As far as educating the public on the form and process of government along with who was elected is spot on. The problem I see is educating the public on issues. First we tie issues to parties and assume all Democrats are liberal and all Republicans are conservative. A real conservative would not be Pro-Choice and for gun control unless he was "govinator" of California. Parties and the lack of party discipline present a problem. To complicate that there are even differences on party platform issues. Where do you fit if you are pro-life and oppose the death penalty? There are too many variables to arrive at concrete answers.
A problem I noticed is in educating people on issues. That becomes a very slippery slope. What separates an educator from a lobbyist or interest group (except for money)? We all have our own biases. Say, for example, I do not support GMO products. I conduct research, have studies done and proceed to educate the public. Monsanto with almost unlimited resources and political connections does the same. Whose message is going to have the most effect on educating the public? Another example. When did science find out that cigarette smoking is harmful compared to when cigarette companies finally admitted smoking was addictive and were sued? I am afraid money speaks more than education in American politics. Power/money trumps education almost every time.
One thing I was very happy to see in Uninformed is participation in local politics. The American public, in general, ignores local politics in favor of national politics. Your vote for president or senator is one amongst the voting population in your state. For example in Texas, there are about fourteen million registered voters so my vote for senator or electors to the electoral college is 1/14,000,000. My city councilman was elected with 251 out or 320 votes. My vote was 1/320. My vote in local elections carries much more weight. Also, if I could easily canvass the precinct for issues or candidates I supported. My effect would be much greater at local levels.
Uninformed takes on a herculean task of trying to educate the public on basics of government. Some of the information is very good and some seem to work well under controlled situations. There is one thing Lupia does well and that is to show we are very ignorant politically. We have given up reason in exchange for bread and circuses. We sit and watch as our country self-destructs, blaming the “other guys” rather than doing anything to fix it.
September 6, 2018
I struggle to think of an audience outside of educators that would find this book of any interest.
January 3, 2024
Fairly dry and uninspiring book about the lack of effective information regarding political matters. Far too much misinformation, and Americans are very poor at discerning that information.
October 17, 2016
This is a very studied book that I wish everyone would read. The first chapter, the one in which Mr. Lupia tells us what he is going to do in the coming chapters, made me feel somewhat impatient. But as I delved into the work I felt as though I was given the most common-sense avenues of conversation with those whom I disagree. Believe it or not, may blood pressure has not risen when confronted by an opposite political opinion. Instead, I go through the steps proposed by Dr. Lupia and amazingly, I understand a bit more about my anger and theirs.
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April 13, 2018320 L965 2016
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews