Media & the Election: Where does D-E get its political information from?

Tomorrow is ELECTION DAY! 

No matter which candidate we support, we can all agree that this election feels like a critical moment in our nation's history. 

So, which sources does the D-E community use to get election information? We asked you to fill out a brief survey and here are the results:

Of the 91 Students who responded to the survey, below are their go-to sources for information: 

Social Media (57 respondents)

Cable News/Television (53 respondents) 

Parents (50 respondents)

Of the 62 Faculty/Staff members who responded, there was a virtual tie among the top three:

Newspapers (38 respondents)

Digital News Media (37 respondents)

Cable News/Television (37 respondents)

We received a lot of feedback regarding which sources the DE community uses to access information. Here's the complete list, in alphabetical order. Of the Faculty/Staff who responded, several cited National Public Radio (NPR) as their go-to source for information. (We forgot to add "Radio/Podcasts" as a category in the survey -- apologies for the oversight!)

Several students who took the survey had this to say about accessing information:

• "Cross-checking and reading perspectives from multiple reliable sources is most important!"
• "It is best to read conflicting sources..."
• "If you watch both (the Far Left and the Far Right), the truth is typically somewhere in between."

At the Library, we are fans of AllSides.com, which aggregates news from left-leaning, right-wing and centrist news publications. It's interesting to see the same event covered multiple ways and how events are interpreted by the journalists reporting on them.  You can even take a quiz to rate your own bias.

Do you want to know how your sources compare when it comes to accuracy? Then check out this Interactive Media Bias Chart, which compares news media according to Reliability and Bias. 

Still confused about which sources to trust? Or how to get the complete picture? Here's a short TedEd animated video that explains how to choose which news you use:

Be sure to stop by the Imperatore Library and check out our "Election Reading" selection. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "an informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy." And it all starts with a good book!