Uninformed or Under-informed Citizens?

As discussed in the Carpini article, many scholars have argued that the mass American public is "uniformed" in terms of politics. Carpini argues that the public is not actually uniformed, but poorly informed. The research in the reading shows that when asked about politically relevant questions on the quiz (questions about the government, political leaders, etc.) the average adult answered about 50 percent of the questions correct (pg 136), leading Carpini to conclude that the public is therefore under informed.

In examining Carpini's data, I came to a completely different conclusion. I found a problem with the definition for "uninformed". This relates directly to the findings in the Gaines et al. reading which suggests that people can hold the same beliefs, but form different interpretations and opinions. Maybe I simply used Carpini's findings to reinforce what I already believed, but I felt like answering 50 percent of the questions in correct was proof that our society is largely uninformed. I have never take a class where 50 percent correct served as a "passing grade". In every class I've ever taken, 50 percent is an F, a failure.
Would you let someone who only earned half the points on their driver test drive you around? Absolutely not. Not all drivers need to be experts, but in order to be a safe driver, you must at least prove to know what you're doing. The same applies to American citizens.

I do agree with Caprini's claim that there are "levels" of being informed. It is definitely not a black and white matter. However, unless the test takers were to score at least 60% of the questions correct, I would be hesitant to say that they were simply "under informed". It is no wonder that the voting levels, and political participation, are so low in this country. Who wants to get involved in something that they know nothing about? It is not clear whether being uninformed leads to low political participation, or low levels of political participation lead to an uninformed citizen (which came me first, the chicken or the egg?) but it makes sense that in an information based era of politics so defined by knowledgeable citizens, people who are uniformed are less likely to participate. Of course, as we have learned before, other resources play a role in this too, such as money and time.