Media Sensationalism and British Ignorance
Recent figures published by a leading market research organisation portray the British public as grossly out of touch with reality when it comes to their understanding of topics such as Islam and benefits. The research published by Ipsos MORI highlights the disparaging misconceptions and inept ignorance of the British public, who, for instance, believe that £24 out of every £100 issued as benefits is spent fraudulently when in fact the real figure stands at approximately 70p. I'm no mathematician but the discrepancy between 0.7% and 24% is a damning indictment of the biased, radicalised beliefs of the British public.
Looking into the readership estimates of British newspapers provided by the National Readership Survey offers some insight into why such a discord between perception and actuality exists, with the two most read publications being The Sun and The Daily Mail. Therein lies the source of the problem and why the average citizen believes that 31% of people in the UK are immigrants when the true figure stands at 13%, why it is thought 24% of the entire British population are Muslims (actually 5%) and why most people are adamant that the most effective means of saving taxpayers' money would be to cap benefits at £26,000 per household (this would apparently save £290 million which is a paltry sum in comparison to other potential options, such as raising the pension age to 66, which would save £5billion).
Cont'd...
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/chris-godfrey/benefits-welfare-statistics_b_3603923.html