Political Knowledge, Ignorance, and Misperception: Focusing on the Characteristics of Incorrect Responses

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-32
Author(s):  
Jaesung Ryu
Keyword(s):  
Political Knowledge

Facing the Challenge of Democracy

2011 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Party Polarization

Citizens are political simpletons—that is only a modest exaggeration of a common characterization of voters. Certainly, there is no shortage of evidence of citizens' limited political knowledge, even about matters of the highest importance, along with inconsistencies in their thinking, some glaring by any standard. But this picture of citizens all too often approaches caricature. This book brings together leading political scientists who offer new insights into the political thinking of the public, the causes of party polarization, the motivations for political participation, and the paradoxical relationship between turnout and democratic representation. These studies propel a foundational argument about democracy. Voters can only do as well as the alternatives on offer. These alternatives are constrained by third players, in particular activists, interest groups, and financial contributors. The result: voters often appear to be shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent because the alternatives they must choose between are shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent.

Imparting Political Knowledge to Schoolchildren

1961 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
A. Lushnikov
Keyword(s):  
Political Knowledge

Reassessing Relationships between Communication Forms and Political Knowledge in Political Campaigns from a Geospatial Perspective: The Case of Local TV News

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yung-I Liu
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Television News ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Political Discussion ◽  
Tv News ◽  
Cable Television News ◽  
The U.S

<p><a>This study investigates the informing effects of communication in political campaigns from a geospatial perspective. The results from analyzing survey data collected during the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections in the U.S. generally suggest that the main forms of traditional </a>communication, i.e., print newspapers and network and cable television news—but with the exception of local TV news—play a significant role in informing citizens about political campaigns. Political discussion also plays a role in this regard. The implications of the respective roles of a number of news forms in a democracy are discussed.</p>

TV Debates in Media Contexts: How and When Do TV Debates Have an Effect on Learning Processes?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aiko Wagner ◽  
Elena Werner
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Learning Effect ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Opposition Party ◽  
Content Analyses ◽  
The Media ◽  
Panel Survey Data

This chapter examines the effect of TV debates on political knowledge conditioned by the media context. We argue that TV debates take place in a wider media context and the extent of citizens’ learning processes about issue positions depends also on the informational context in general. We test four hypotheses: while the first three hypotheses concern the conditional impact of media issue coverage and debate content, the last hypothesis addresses the differences between incumbent and challenger. Using media content analyses and panel survey data, our results confirm the hypotheses that (1) when an issue is addressed in a TV debate, viewers tend to develop a perception of the parties’ positions on this issue, but (2) only if this issue has not been addressed extensively in the media beforehand. This learning effect about parties’ positions is bigger for the opposition party.

Political Knowledge and Misinformation in the Era of Social Media: Evidence From the 2015 UK Election

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Kevin Munger ◽  
Patrick J. Egan ◽  
Jonathan Nagler ◽  
Jonathan Ronen ◽  
Joshua Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Political Information ◽  
The Political ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Media Platform

Abstract Does social media educate voters, or mislead them? This study measures changes in political knowledge among a panel of voters surveyed during the 2015 UK general election campaign while monitoring the political information to which they were exposed on the Twitter social media platform. The study's panel design permits identification of the effect of information exposure on changes in political knowledge. Twitter use led to higher levels of knowledge about politics and public affairs, as information from news media improved knowledge of politically relevant facts, and messages sent by political parties increased knowledge of party platforms. But in a troubling demonstration of campaigns' ability to manipulate knowledge, messages from the parties also shifted voters' assessments of the economy and immigration in directions favorable to the parties' platforms, leaving some voters with beliefs further from the truth at the end of the campaign than they were at its beginning.

Closing the Knowledge Gap: How Issue Priming Before Presidential Debate Viewing Encourages Learning and Opinion Articulation

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110003
Author(s):  
Freddie J. Jennings ◽  
Robert H. Wicks ◽  
Mitchell S. McKinney ◽  
Kate Kenski
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
Cognitive Elaboration ◽  
Priming Condition ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Presidential Debate

One mechanism by which citizens learn about candidates and issues is through watching presidential debates. Some scholars have raised concerns that these events, however, disproportionately benefit those already high in political knowledge more so than others with lesser knowledge levels. We hypothesize that knowledge begets knowledge because it prompts a constructive cognitive process that results from elaboration and reflection. We test this hypothesis in an experiment that also considers whether issue priming could help mitigate the deficit that those lower in political sophistication have when viewing campaign events. Participants ( N = 543) watched a 9-minute segment focusing on economic issues drawn from the first 2020 presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joseph Biden. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to an issue priming condition and viewed the debate segment after reading a narrative text on economic policy, and the other half read an unrelated text. The study presents a model that reveals the following: (a) cognitive elaboration mediates the relationship between prior political knowledge and learning from a campaign event, (b) providing citizens with background issue–related knowledge produces a similar elaborative effect as did preexisting political knowledge, and (c) participants demonstrate greater political opinion articulation following this enhanced elaboration leading to more learning. The implications for cultivating a knowledgeable democratic electorate are discussed.

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