1/23/17

Liberal Ideologies: supports major reformation, very heavily involved govt (as
in the economy, health care, welfare, etc), tend to favor the consumers and
workers, esp in small business, more of a secular value set, not a fan of a strong
foreign presence (occupation or intervention), pro-NATO, pro UN, etc
Conservative Ideologies: Dont favor change, free market economy, minimal
government involvement in private sectors, aligns with a more pro-
business/industry train of thought, in America values tend to be biblical, more
spending and devotion to being the international police, opposition to foreign
international organizations
Liberalism is not a political party but instead of a classical set of ideological
values based around liberty and equality
Libertarianism: liberalism but a more radical mindset about freedom
Tea Party: conservative w/ emphasis on small govt
Political Socialization: the process of acquiring political beliefs and values
1/25/17
Political Socialization: The process of acquiring political beliefs and values
-Family & Social Networks (more likely to follow trends set by parents
and friends hive mind)
-Race (socioeconomic inhibitors)
-Gender (womens rights)
-Religion (Christian/Judeo/Islamic vs secular values, i.e. abortion,
homosexual marriage, climate change, marijuana, etc)
-Party affiliation (I align more with abc than xyz so I lean more towards
party abc and will stay there)
-Self-interest (wage)
-Education (trends say a more educated person will be more liberal
than less educated individuals, who lean conservative)
-Political environment (domestic social issues, war, terrorism, etc)
Unstable public opinion and low knowledge
-Information costs (time, money, effort, etc)
-Long known problem, but more so now?
-Party polarization cues from elite persons have stronger impact
-Scanning and skimming news headlines
-Problem for our democracy?
Manipulation by people with power/money
 Growing inequality
1/27/17
Major forces that shape public opinion
-Government
-Interest Groups
-The Media
Public Opinion and Government Policy
-Do citizens opinions influence policies? Liberal policies upset
conservatives and vice versa
-Reverse causality (policies can change the publics opinions ex: in
states where same-sex marriage was legalized before Obergefell v
Hodges, general public opinion shifted in support of same-sex
marriage)
-The opinions of some matter more than others
How to measure public opinion
-Public opinion polls
-Representative sample Biased sample (ex: How often do you
drink? More likely to get larger numbers at a party than at a library, vs
pooling all students of legal age and asking all)
Probability sampling: method of getting information where
anyone in a pool of possible people have an equal chance of
being selected
Random digit dialing: only effective if everyone picks up phone
and doesnt hang up until after information is collected
-Sample size and margin of error (outliers like I dont drink at all and
I drink constantly skew results, so pool a large number of students to
get optimal results and reduce margin of error)
-Other issues
Wording of questions: simple language is a sure-fire way for
accurate results. More complicated terminology risks confusion
in survey pool and can skew results.
Push polling: not so much trying to collect information so much
as trying to change public opinion
Bandwagon effect: The more successful a candidate is, the more
likely people will hop on. Less successful, more people hop off.
1/30/17
The media is important
-People obtain information through media (whether accurate or not)
 -Protected by the 1st Amendment
Print Media
-Newspapers (often not the preferred medium but still important)
Broadcast media
-TV still a widely used medium for information (news affiliates)
-TV will often emphasize appearance over content
-Can lean on the side of superficial, can often be negative or
scandalous (esp. on gossip channels or shows i.e. E!)
-More channels Greater ability to avoid politics???
-Overall evening news viewership has dropped steadily since 1980
Mass Media Ownership
-Increasing monopolization
Online Media
-Has experienced exponential growth
-Mass increase of social media
Fake news has become a bigger problem (clicks for views but no
substance, people will share a headline w/o reading story)
-Quick updates and real-time comments
-People choose what they want to learn about, leading to the rise of
niche journalism
-Citizen Journalism contains a variety of quality and diversity of
opinions