The more people rely on TV programs for scientific information, the lower they score in media literacy polls, a survey released on Wednesday last week by National Taiwan University showed.
The Internet has emerged as the most common source of scientific information for Taiwanese, used by 58 percent of respondents, followed by TV (32 percent) and print media such as books (15.4 percent), magazines (9.5 percent) and newspapers (6.1 percent), the survey conducted by the university’s Science Media Center Taiwan found.
In terms of which type of media they trusted, 32.1 percent of respondents said that no medium is trustworthy, while 36.2 percent said they trusted TV news, 20.3 percent trusted information that they found online and 5.9 percent trusted newspapers.
Asked how often they seek to verify information in a news story, 32.8 percent of respondents said that they “often” consult other sources, 27.3 percent said that they “sometimes” do and 22.6 percent said that they never do.
The survey included 15 questions to assess the respondents’ understanding of the limits of scientific research, scientific arguments and news headlines, as well as how well they could distinguish between factual and fabricated stories.
For instance, the survey asked respondents whether the following statements were true or false: “Taiwan’s farmers use hormones to stimulate growth in chickens,” “5G networks can spread the virus that causes COVID-19” and “offshore wind turbines can topple during a typhoon.” The correct answer to all three questions is “false.”
The survey found that people who rely more on TV programs scored lower in the test, while those who often verify information and have a higher level formal education scored higher.
The survey was conducted by mobile and landline telephone interviews among Taiwanese aged 18 and older from May 25 to 30, and included 1,068 valid questionnaires.
It had a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,