ABC News is excited about porn. At least excited by the “fact” that conservative and religious states have the highest levels of porn usage in the country. This, ABC says, is according to a study by Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School. Yes, it’s another one of those dime-a-dozen studies.
ABC trumpets the bare “facts” in its February 28 piece titled, “Porn in the USA: Conservatives Are Biggest Consumers.” In its first few paragraphs the report claims that, “Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious” than states in the more liberal areas of the country. But there is a problem with ABC’s heavy-handed claim. Even the Harvard researcher doesn’t put too much emphasis on the “conservative states” aspect because his data doesn’t show a very wide gulf between states, conservative or not.
In fact, professor Edelman takes pains to say, “When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different.” This tends to relay that the rates from state to state really aren’t that notable. Edelman also says later in the piece that, “The differences here are not so stark,” where it concerns the data he compiled.
The per thousand citizens numbers don’t seem that varied from state to state, really. For instance, according to Edelman’s stats the state with the lowest online purchases of porn was West Virginia at a rate of 0.50 per thousand residents. Yet the highest, Utah, was only at 1.69 per thousand. That is not such a big difference, is it? At least, Edelmen didn’t seem to think it was too notable and it’s his study!
In essence, ABC is making far more of these supposed differences than even the author of the study makes. Don’t you wonder why that is?
There is one other small problem with Edelman’s efforts (see pdf file of study HERE). His very first reference in the paper is built on a source long known to be completely false. On the second page of the report on his study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (Vol 23, #1, Winter 2009), Edelman relies on the claims of porn industry trade publication AVN Media Network that says the online porn industry made $2.8 billion dollars in 2006. AVN also claims that the entire porn industry pulled in nearly $13 billion in 2006.
However, it has long been known that the numbers presented by AVN are in no way verifiable. Forbes Magazine took AVN’s claims to task back in 2001 (after one of AVN’s earlier reports of porn industry takings) and found the numbers impossible to verify. In 2001 Forbes reckoned that the industry could not have made more than $4 billion, a number far less than the $10 billion AVN was then claiming. A 2007Boing, Boing article also discussed the unverifiable AVN numbers.
Anyway, the point here is, if prof Edelman relied on AVN’s fake claims, what else did he get wrong in his piece? What other methods and statistics were informed by shady sources?
Still, regardless of what Edelman did or didn’t do, and regardless of whether his study is accurate, he wasn’t making a big deal out of the conservative vs. liberal porn consumption. ABC, however, unaccountably tried to make one of the central points of the story.
Imagine that!
Unverifiable. Sincerely, Dan Rather. <font color="MintCream">nt</font>
6eorge Jetson Sunday, March 1st at 10:14AM EST (link)I agree. The Bible is now the most pornographic material as per Harvard standard.
Rod_Patrick Sunday, March 1st at 10:19AM EST (link)It’s so happened that MSM standard is the same as that of the Harvard Standard. Proof? Obama.
To Kowalski
Rod_Patrick Sunday, March 1st at 10:22AM EST (link)In conclusion:
Since the conservatives are the biggest readers of the Bible… so it’s just natural that Harvard will identify the conservatives as biggest porn consumers.
Just Look
Barnee Sunday, March 1st at 10:27AM EST (link)I agree!
Another example: Yesterday, Saturday, I was listening to the 1:00 PM news on my AM radio. A study that ABC News reported on suggested that the very rich were responsible for our financial crisis because they buy large homes. The poor people that build those homes must than take out risky loans to purchase their homes…the result is the wealthy are to blame for the poorer people’s bad decisions.
ABC reports this as a fact and ,unfortunately, the general public believes it to be true.
Talk about truth in lending.
Barnee
This kind of story has been destroying the credibility of the Republican Party to the gullible people.
Rod_Patrick Sunday, March 1st at 10:45AM EST (link)I’m especially angry on this kind of MSM reporting.
Non-thinking public will construe this as “knowledge” without even analyzing the veracity and logic of the arguments.
ABC, through it’s headline, clearly misinterpreted the Harvard report in question.
Let’s say that the main end-users of the porn materials are in the Red states. Did Harvard examine the political affiliations of the porn buyers in those states?
One possible hypothesis could be this one:
“Since dems and libs don’t have enough places or opportunities to express their sexual urges in Red States, they resort to porn materials for cheap releases.” [sorry...that's not my intention here]
I am not saying that the above statement is true. The same should undergo a standard social analysis through sampling before a formal conclusion can be made.
But since the report did not provide elucidation to the above proposition, I can fairly say that there’s something missing in the research design of the said Harvard study…. if it’s real intention aligns with the ABC’s drivel.
However, the diary’s hints indicate that ABC’s story is inconsistent with the objective of the Harvard study. Thus, it’s another classic example of MSM ’s disinformation campaign against the conservative movement.
Didn't read the study
Matthew Sunday, March 1st at 11:09AM EST (link)I didn’t read the study; but I can see another problem, even in highly conservative (or liberal) states, there are dense pockets of folks politically leaning differently. How in depth does the study go? If it is just the state level, that doesn’t really help us.
Also, I’d be curious to look at the sales figures — is this just magazines? Videos? Sex hotlines?
Where are the sales numbers coming from?
Maybe this could be answered by reading the study — but I don’t have the time, so I’m tossing this out to see if these are legitimate complaints or if they’re answered.
It sounds like the study doesn’t mean much.
Having read a bit more of it...
mikefisk Sunday, March 1st at 1:10PM EST (link)…let me fill in some blanks.
This was in regards to consumption of pornographic materials online. In fact, it IS entirely possible that social conservatism has something to do with it, but not in the way ABC made it out to sound.
First off, try looking for adult bookstores in particularly socially conservative areas. They tend not to exist. In a state like Utah, I think it would be a relatively safe assumption that the number of adult bookstores per capita is probably significantly lower than the national average, as the general population doesn’t really want them there.
Secondly, there’s the factor of the expectations of others. The main appeal to online porn is anonymity; you’re not having to walk out of an adult boutique carrying a brown paper bag, for instance. In a state like Utah, where the general population is very socially conservative, porn consumers would be drawn online in greater numbers, mainly to avoid having to answer questions from their neighbors.
In short, I think the author’s general premise may be right after all, but for the wrong reasons, and ABC’s own little editorializing is more than likely completely off base.
“Once within the maw of Leviathan, degree of digestion is irrelevant.” - Michael Fisk
7.88, -1.97
Liberalism IS pornography
johnt Sunday, March 1st at 11:24AM EST (link)This from the people who spent eight years defending the presence of a serial sex assaulter in the White House.
It would appear that ABC has concluded that a red state is, must be, monolithic in it’s voting. What if the porn consumers however represent say 51% Democrats and 49% Republicans, how many are actually conservatives and how many liberals, or for that matter apolitical ? Or is the population of the state just one big political and identical lump ?
Just more mindless tripe from the center of American stupidity, our MSM
“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville
From "The Scarlet Letter" on,
Achance Sunday, March 1st at 11:24AM EST (link)the sexual hypocrisy of the religious/conservative has been a prominent, maybe the prominent, meme in the American literary canon. That canon was first established by Northeastern elites and in the modern era is set by leftists in academia. The preacher as sexual predator is pounded into American students from junior high forward.
Since religiousity informs conservative belief even for those who aren’t very religious, the Left has to attack religion and the religious. The easy way has proven to be the sexualization of the Country then it is easy to attack those who criticize that sexuality.
In Vino Veritas
Conclusion: Conservatives pay for porn,
Tbone Sunday, March 1st at 11:36AM EST (link)liberals steal it.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
Ha
Jay_Cee Sunday, March 1st at 12:18PM EST (link)I had the exact same thought.
My first thought
tricks Sunday, March 1st at 11:43AM EST (link)was that makes sense. Only because local laws in “conservative states” tend to bar or be much more restrictive towards businesses that market pornographic materials as their primary focus. If buyers can’t get it locally, then of course they would need to order on line. I think left leaning states just have more liberal laws regarding XXX businesses so it’s easier for customers to buy locally if they so choose.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln
Suspect study methodology, poor statistics
civil_truth Sunday, March 1st at 11:46AM EST (link)And even then, the author said these things:
And this bit didn’t make in to ABC for some strange reason
Wish I had time for more thorough debunking. But one point, I’ve never before seen a p value of .1 accepted as statisically significant in a scientific paper. Table 3 was totally incomprehensible, which is where most of the “findings” were drawn from.
Worse, the study principal author in the ABC inerview went far beyond the study findings in his comments, clearly showing that he had an political agenda of “hypocrisy” that he wanted to get out despite the non-cooperation of the data.
And Rightly So!
Findings are worthless without multiple regression analysis
civil_truth Sunday, March 1st at 12:20PM EST (link)Otherwise, the study is simply throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.
If you’re going to look a hundreds of variabless and set overly lenient significance levels, you’re going to find lots of p-values that are significant, if only from the laws of chance. If anything, the author should have set his significance level at .01.
Since many of these variable are co-correlated (i.e. not independent), the only way to sort out what are the genuinely significant correlates is to do a multiple regression analysis to identify and rank the variables.
The failure of the authors to do this represents a failure of peer-reviewer - and also enables the author to cherry pick and expound all sorts of innuendo without a basis in reality.
Which I guess is the new paradigm for our nation in this Orwellian era of Obama - until reality explosively intrudes, as history teaches us it always does in the end.
And Rightly So!
The statistics are alright, the ABC spin is the problem
Rubashov Sunday, March 1st at 6:04PM EST (link)Don’t get mad at the author, get mad at ABC, please.
a) The statistics are fine. First, a cutoff of p=.1 is normal in the social sciences. Second, the article DOES use multiple regression (check out the first paragraph on p.216). Third, the suspect AVN figures are fluff in the intro, he doesn’t use them in his analysis. He gets his real numbers from respectable sources.
b) The author’s claim is fairly clear at the end (the sentence bridging the last two pages)–and it’s not what ABC says. He finds that online porn subscriptions “show remarkable consistency” across state and demographic boundaries. His map (table 2) shows this: Minnesota and Texas are the same, New York is higher than North Carolina, Washington State is quite high–there is no red/blue divide on that map.
c) The author does not make any casual claim tying conservatism to porn buying. From what I read, the argument (stated in other comments) that people in conservative places buy it online because they can’t get it in stores fits perfectly with his findings, and he offers no reason to think he’d disagree.
d) The issue of whether or not to control for broadband use is an important one which ABC neglects. In the article, he discusses it, and shows two pictures–one controlling for it and one not. By ignoring this, ABC twists the article. For example, the ABC article says that 8 of the top 10 states voted for McCain. That’s true, controlling for broadband use. In a straight per capita list (which the author provides) 7 of the 10 vote for Obama. The author remains equivocal about which list is best, since he cannot get data on what percent of broadband users get broadband in order to watch porn.
In other words, the article is a solid piece of research that makes no claims it can’t back up with empirical proof. It does not put a partisan spin (or even provide data that could be honestly spun). The problem here is that the ABC reporters (who probably don’t understand the statistical issues) cherry picked fragments of the article and strung them together into something new.
That's libel
Menlo Sunday, March 1st at 12:19PM EST (link)If I had the money, I’d sue both ABC and this scumbag Ewen Callaway (probably himself a biggest consumer) for libel. Calling conservative states “conservatives” is a lie with clear malicious intent.
It’s common knowledge that people don’t read articles anymore; they only skim the headlines.
“Guess which party these big insurance companies favor? Big companies love big government.” -Ann Coulter
hummm if this was true....
Jack Sunday, March 1st at 1:45PM EST (link)Then conservatives would be lining up to watch those well known whores Nora O’Donnell, Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman, and David Shuster.
Jack
“If at age 20 you are conservative you have no heart. It at age 30 you are liberal you have no brains.” Sir Winston Churchill
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Next93 Sunday, March 1st at 2:37PM EST (link)A few questions:
1. What possible use is this study to anyone outside the porn industry?
2. How much money went into this study?
3. How much does Harvard cost to attend a year?
4. How much do studies like this add to the tuition costs?
5. How much government money goes into Harvard every year, in the forms of PEL grants and research grants?
6. How much money will Harvard receive from the “stimulus” package?
I have to tell you, the idea that I spent even a second working in order to pay the government so that Harvard can do studies like this, really brightens up my day.
Constitutional limits on the powers of the federal government:
It’s not just the law, it’s a good idea!
ABC?
smitch61 Sunday, March 1st at 3:02PM EST (link)I gave up on ABC months ago when I watched nightline for 3 consecutive evenings and not once did they even mention John McCain… Not once. It was an Obama love fest. ABC is a joke, and for me the most disappointing. It used to be the network of Peter Jennings and Ted Kopel to name a couple… Network has gone completely down hill and not worthy of my time. I no longer watch anything on that network including what used to be my favorite shows. I know it may sound drastic, but it works for me.
DADvocate
DADvocate Sunday, March 1st at 4:06PM EST (link)The real correlation is most likely according to income.
West Virginia’s Median HH income: $36,088
Utah: $53,324 (which is above the U.S. average of $50,007)
But that’s boring and doesn’t push the liberal agenda.
The author says this...
Rubashov Sunday, March 1st at 6:07PM EST (link)On page 216, he says: “at mean values of other variables considered, a $1,000 increase in average household income in a zip code [he looks at sub-state level data] is associated with a 0.36 percent increase in subscriptions.”
It is actually the first variable he lists in his results. Blame ABC.