The more you know, the less you like: A comparative study of how news and political conversation shape political knowledge and affective polarization

2021 ◽  
pp. 205704732110632
Author(s):  
Jiyoun Suk ◽  
David Coppini ◽  
Carlos Muñiz ◽  
Hernando Rojas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Communication Ecology ◽  
Political Conversation ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Indirect Path ◽  
Journalistic Professionalism

The contemporary communication ecology contributes to affective polarization by presenting us with extreme exemplars of disliked groups. News exposure that is associated with political discussion networks is related to greater political knowledge, yet unlike previous eras where political knowledge and tolerance went hand in hand, this is no longer the case. We employ a comparative design to examine this idea among two democracies with differing levels of journalistic professionalism and political system: Mexico and the United States. Results show that greater political knowledge is associated with affective polarization, especially for the United States. Furthermore, there was a significant indirect path between media use and affective polarization, mediated through homogeneous political talk and political knowledge, but not in Mexico.

Political Talk Over Here, Over There, Over Time

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN E. BENNETT ◽  
RICHARD S. FLICKINGER ◽  
STACI L. RHINE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Important Form ◽  
Over Time

Data from Great Britain and the United States from the late 1950s to the early 1990s show relatively little change in the frequency with which citizens engage in political discussions, with whom they are likely to speak, and the variables that shape their propensity to engage in political talk. In addition, analyses of the data show that discussing politics enhances citizens' knowledge of public affairs, even net of other variables known to affect political knowledge. Students of political behaviour and those interested in strengthening democracy need to treat political discussions as an important form of political participation.

scholarly journals The Role of Personality in Political Talk and Like-Minded Discussion

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122199409
Author(s):  
Shelley Boulianne ◽  
Karolina Koc-Michalska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Political discussion is a key mechanism for the development of reasoned opinions and political knowledge, but online political discussion has been characterized as uncivil, intolerant, and/or ideologically homogeneous, which is detrimental to this development. In this paper, we examine the role of personality in various forms of political talk—online and offline—as well as like-minded discussion. Based on a 2017 survey conducted in the United Kingdom, United States, and France, we find that people who are open-minded and extraverted are more likely to engage in political talk but less likely to engage in like-minded discussion. Individuals who are older, less educated, introverted, and conscientious are more likely to find themselves in like-minded discussions, both online and on social media. Like-minded discussion is rare; personality, rather than ideology, predicts whether people engage in this form of political talk in online and offline modes. Our findings challenge the role of social media in the creation of like-minded discussion. Instead, we should look to the role of individual attributes, such as personality traits, which create a disposition that motivates the use of social media (and offline networks) to cultivate like-minded discussion.

Bipartisanship as Possible Alternative of Russian Political System Evolution

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 256-265
Author(s):  
Konstantin V. Simonov ◽  
Stanislav P. Mitrakhovich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Practical Advice ◽  
Simultaneous Separation

The article examines the possibility of transfer to bipartisan system in Russia. The authors assess the benefits of the two-party system that include first of all the ensuring of actual political competition and authority alternativeness with simultaneous separation of minute non-system forces that may contribute to the country destabilization. The authors analyze the accompanying risks and show that the concept of the two-party system as the catalyst of elite schism is mostly exaggerated. The authors pay separate attention to the experience of bipartisan system implementation in other countries, including the United States. They offer detailed analysis of the generated concept of the bipartisanship crisis and show that this point of view doesn’t quite agree with the current political practice. The authors also examine the foreign experience of the single-party system. They show that the success of the said system is mostly insubstantial, besides many of such systems have altered into more complex structures, while commentators very often use not the actual information but the established myths about this or that country. The authors also offer practical advice regarding the potential technologies of transition to the bipartisan system in Russia.

scholarly journals International Perspectives on COVID-19 Communication Ecologies: Public Health Agencies’ Online Communication in Italy, Sweden, and the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422199283
Author(s):  
Serena Tagliacozzo ◽  
Frederike Albrecht ◽  
N. Emel Ganapati
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Public Health Agencies ◽  
Communication Ecology ◽  
Health Agencies ◽  
National Public Health

Communicating during a crisis can be challenging for public agencies as their communication ecology becomes increasingly complex while the need for fast and reliable public communication remains high. Using the lens of communication ecology, this study examines the online communication of national public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, Sweden, and the United States. Based on content analysis of Twitter data ( n = 856) and agency press releases ( n = 95), this article investigates two main questions: (1) How, and to what extent, did national public health agencies coordinate their online communication with other agencies and organizations? (2) How was online communication from the agencies diversified in terms of targeting specific organizations and social groups? Our findings indicate that public health agencies relied heavily on internal scientific expertise and predominately coordinated their communication efforts with national government agencies. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that agencies in each country differed in how they diversify information; however, all agencies provided tailored information to at least some organizations and social groups. Across the three countries, information tailored for several vulnerable groups (e.g., pregnant women, people with disabilities, immigrants, and homeless populations) was largely absent, which may contribute to negative consequences for these groups.

Political sophistication

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Παύλος Βασιλόπουλος
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Political Sophistication

This dissertation is concerned with the concept of political sophistication, referring to the extent and organization of a person’s stored political cognition (Luskin 1987).Available empirical evidence on the levels of political sophistication in mass publics comes almost exclusively from the United States and point to two broad conclusions: First, systematic empirical research has demonstrated that political information in the mass public is particularly low (Converse 1964, Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996). Citizens lack basic knowledge over political affairs. Time and again empirical studies have systematically showed that citizens in the United States and elsewhere fall short of passing even the most rudimentary political knowledge tests. This finding that was first illustrated by the Michigan school in the early 1960s (Campbell et al. 1960) resulted in a wide pessimism over the meaning of public opinion and even of representative democracy (Inglehart 1985).The second broad conclusion is that the politically sophisticated and unsophisticated differ: Political sophisticates have the cognitive capacity to translate their deeper held political values and predispositions into consistent political attitudes (Zaller 1992). They are able to use their political knowledge in order to make informed vote choices in the sense that they accurately adjust their political positions to the parties’ platforms (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996, Lau and Redlawsk 1997, 2006). What is more, they are more likely to participate in elections and other political activities and are less susceptible to political propaganda (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996).However the idea that political sophistication matters for the quality of the public’s political decision-making has met strong theoretical and methodological criticism by the ‘low information rationality’ perspective (Popkin 1991, Lupia 1994,Graber 2001). This group of theories argues that politically inattentive citizens can form their political judgment on the basis of heuristics that allow them to make reasonable choices reflecting their predispositions and interests even though they lack political knowledge.The principal aims of this thesis are: a)to compare different measurement perspectives on political sophistication and assess their methodological potential especially in regard with comparative research on political knowledgeb)to explore the extent to which the pattern of ignorance that has been repeatedly highlighted in the American literature is an internal characteristic of political behavior stemming from the low expected utility of acquiring political information or it is subject to particular cultural and systemic characteristics. To this direction I use Greece as a case study by undertaking an analytical survey of political sophistication, one of the very few that have been conducted across the Atlantic.c)The third aim is to investigate the determinants of political sophistication and especially the potential of the mass media in political learning and in the context of the Greek political and media system.d)d) Finally this thesis addresses the unresolved question concerning the differences in quality of political decisions between the political sophisticated and unsophisticated layers of the public by evaluating the explanatory potential of two competing theories (political sophistication v. low information rationality) in the multi-party political environment of Greece

scholarly journals The Impact of the End of the Cold War on Canadian and American TV News Coverage of Cuba: Image Consistency or Image Change?

1998 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter C. Soderlund ◽  
Ronald H. Wagenberg ◽  
Stuart H. Surlin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Political System ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Television ◽  
Tv News ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Abstract: The profound changes experienced by the international political system from 1988 to 1992, subsumed under the rubric ``the fall of Communism,'' suggest an opportunity for changes in the way North American television news would report on events in Cuba. This article examines major network news coverage of Cuba in Canada (CBC and CTV) and in the United States (ABC, CBS, and NBC) from 1988 through 1992. Given the different histories of Canadian-Cuban and U.S.-Cuban relations since the revolution, the extent of similar negative coverage of the island in both countries' reporting is somewhat surprising. Also, it is apparent that the end of the Cold War did not change, in any fundamental way, the frames employed by television news in its coverage of Cuba. Résumé: Les changements profonds dans le système politique international qui ont eu lieu de 1988 à 1992, et qu'on décrit généralement comme marquant la "chute du communisme", indiqueraient la possibilité d'un changement dans la façon que les chaînes nord-américaines auraient de rapporter les événements dans leurs programmes d'information sur le Cuba. Cet article examinera les programmes d'information des chaînes canadiennes les plus importantes (CBC et CTV) et de celles des États-Unis (ABC, CBS et NBC) de 1988 jusqu'à 1992. Étant donné l'évolution différente dans les relations Canada / Cuba et États-Unis / Cuba depuis la révolution cubaine de 1959, nous avons été frappés par le degré de ressemblance entre les reportages négatifs sur le Cuba faits par les chaînes des deux pays nord-américains. En plus, il est évident que la fin de la guerre froide n'a pas changé de manière fondamentale le point de vue des reportages télévisés sur les événements cubains.

The Paradox of Partisanship in the United States

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Campbell ◽  
Ove K. Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political System ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Private Funding ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
Political Divide

This chapter discusses how the United States experienced a crisis of partisanship that was marked by a continuing escalation in ideological rancor, polarization, and divisiveness in Washington. This entailed the proliferation of a more competitive and often contentious set of private policy research organizations thanks to numerous sources of tax deductible private funding from corporations and wealthy individuals, and a fragmented and porous political system. Paradoxically, as the crisis of partisanship reached an unprecedented level in the late 1990s and early 2000s, cooperation among some of these organizations broke out across the political divide due to the efforts of those who sensed the disastrous consequences of such mean-spirited partisanship for the country and for the credibility of their research organizations.

Franco Spain at the Origins of the European Agricultural Community

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-100
Author(s):  
Fernando Guirao
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Agricultural Trade ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
Agricultural Community ◽  
Trade Bloc ◽  
West European

Chapter 2 shows that Madrid faced serious risks when integration threatened agriculture. A West-European agricultural trade bloc threatened Spain’s economy and political system. Fortunately for Franco Spain, the governments promoting agricultural integration soon deserted supranational features and moved into trade talks to offer other west European countries the surpluses they had generated after 1947. Spain concluded a purchasing contract for wheat with France. This and the prospects of wheat from the International Wheat Agreement and the United States, allowed Madrid to avoid bread rationing after the spring of 1952. By the end of the Green Pool episode, Spain had been granted de facto OEEC treatment in agricultural trade. Thus, the proposed European Agricultural Community provided the Franco regime with the opportunity to improve food consumption and overcome a critical threat to its survival.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 330-334
Author(s):  
Rush Doshi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Competitive Position ◽  
The Us

This concluding chapter discusses China strategy amid present debates over whether America is in decline. It argues that decline is not a product of immutable historical forces, but a choice, and that fatalism about the US competitive position relative to China is premature. It explains that the United States has faced four waves of “declinism” in the last century and has rallied after each of them, with “declinists” playing a role in preventing that which they predicted. This time, the downward path runs through the country’s polarized political system, and the path away from decline may run through a rare area susceptible to bipartisan consensus: the need for the United States to rise to the China challenge. The chapter argues that the arrival of an external competitor has often pushed the United States to become its best self and that, handled judiciously, it can once again.

scholarly journals El colegio electoral y su historia: de los debates constitucionales a las elecciones de 2016 = The Electoral College and its History: From the Constitutional Debates to the 2016 Elections

2018 ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Pedro Francisco Ramos Josa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Political System ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
The Relationship

El presente artículo tiene por objeto analizar la finalidad y utilidad de la institución del Colegio Electoral en el sistema político de Estados Unidos. Para dicho propósito haré un repaso histórico de los orígenes constitucionales del Colegio Electoral, seguido de una descripción de su evolución a lo largo de más de 200 años de existencia, finalizando con un análisis de su influencia en el resultado de las últimas elecciones presidenciales del pasado 8 de noviembre de 2016. Por último, y teniendo en cuenta todo lo anterior, valoraré la relación entre el Colegio Electoral y la democracia estadounidense.It is the object of the present article to analyze the purpose and usefulness of the institution of the Electoral College in the United States political system. For that purpose I will make a historical review of the Electoral College constitutional origins, followed by a description of its evolution throughout more than 200 years of existence, to conclude with a review of the main arguments for and against the Electoral College. Finally, and bearing in mind the aforementioned, I will assess the relationship between the Electoral College and the American democracy.

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