Building upon research from the early twentieth century that indicated a lack of an informed public, philip converse in the 1970s used scientific surveys to research public opinion in regard to voting. this research indicated that

This research indicated that  ordinary citizens are ill-informed about political issues, ill-equipped to understand politics, and quite fickle in how they stand on issues.
The majority of people tend to believe everything the press told them while ignoring the facts that all of the news outlets tend to have biased political leanings in their reporting.