Part I News Media and Civic Malaise
Media potential role: (1) Watch Dog (2) Civic Forum (3) Mobilizing Agent
Part II Trends in PolComm
Newspapers: sales are still relatively high; the concentration of news ownership does not effect the coverage or freedom of the press; whether or not there has been a ‘tabloidization’ of newspapers is still understudied.
TV: There has been an increase in entertainment coverage
Internet: Mobilization Theory vs. Reinforcement Theory (does the Internet bring more people into the political discussion, or merely reinforce the digital gap theory. Is Norris’s analysis dated? She does not consider the recent boom in Internet use, especially among younger people and people of lower socioeconomic status. When she wrote her book about 20% of the population was connected.
Part III The Impact on Democracy
In conclusion, Norris associates high levels of news consumption with higher levels of efficacy, higher levels of political participation and low levels of government cynicism.
Chapter 10 Knows Little? Information and Choice
Three perspectives are common in the literature to establish political knowledge benchmarks:
(1) Civics approach assumes narrow type of ideal info about gov and public policy that all citizens need to know
(2) Relativist stances acknowledges that people have a limited reservoir of political information but suggests that it is sufficient to cast a vote.
(3) Practical Knowledge: citizens need enough knowledge to help them connect their political and social prefs to the available options.
Pg 214: 5 questions that measure political knowledge.
General class discussion: What is the difference between civic and practical knowledge, and which is more important for informing citizens?
-Civic knowledge would be knowledge of Supreme Court Justices, etc.
-Practical knowledge would be a knowledge of which political party is likely to support privatized health care, etc. Which type of knowledge is more important to measures of sophistication? Which type of knowledge does Norris capture in her surveys?
Showing posts with label week 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label week 2. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Kuklinski et al. (2001) The Political Environment and Citizen Competence.
Key Terms: the Political Environment: Motivation + Available Information
How do the value of information and induced motivation work together to influence the quality of citizens decision-making?
What is the “political environment?” “The totality of politically relevant communication to which citizens are exposed. It includes all the statements and information that the media, public officials, interest groups and other relevant actors provide with respect to a iven issue or policy debate” (footnote 411). When the environment invokes MOTIVATION decision making is improved (Sanbonmatsu & Fazio 1990). “The most relevant motivation in the context of evaluating policy, then, is simply the inclination to evaluate policies thoughtfully and seriously, then just as political environments can vary in the quality of the information they provide, so can they vary in the extent to which they encourage thoughtful evaluation” (413).
Data: Survey of 1160 random adults in Illinois.
Issue: Health Care Tradeoffs
Condition 1: environment devoid of information and incentive; will respondents make tradeoffs when they don’t have to? (questionnaire with 7 goals, rate from 1-10/ p. 416)
Findings: most people rated each of the 7 goals as a 10 importance completion; when we control for education, those highly educated are likely to demand less.
Condition 2: respondent received general information item about tradeoffs. Not a significant change—“Simply stating that decision about governmental programs require giving up one thing to get something else does not redice the overall demand to achieve all of the goals” (419).
Condition 3: a randomly selected 25% were told that people do best on these types of questions when they take time to think…” another 25% were told to act as if they were a public official. Both conditions were meant to increase cognitive processing and induce a greater willingness to overcome the unpleasantness with compromising some desired goals. (motivational instruction). Insignificant findings. Asking people to think doesn’t change their responses.
Condition 4: general information + motivational instruction = significance. (reduce demand, invoke tradeoffs).
Also, respondents are more likely to make tradeoffs in high information environments (57% of respondents choice tradeoff option).
How do the value of information and induced motivation work together to influence the quality of citizens decision-making?
What is the “political environment?” “The totality of politically relevant communication to which citizens are exposed. It includes all the statements and information that the media, public officials, interest groups and other relevant actors provide with respect to a iven issue or policy debate” (footnote 411). When the environment invokes MOTIVATION decision making is improved (Sanbonmatsu & Fazio 1990). “The most relevant motivation in the context of evaluating policy, then, is simply the inclination to evaluate policies thoughtfully and seriously, then just as political environments can vary in the quality of the information they provide, so can they vary in the extent to which they encourage thoughtful evaluation” (413).
Data: Survey of 1160 random adults in Illinois.
Issue: Health Care Tradeoffs
Condition 1: environment devoid of information and incentive; will respondents make tradeoffs when they don’t have to? (questionnaire with 7 goals, rate from 1-10/ p. 416)
Findings: most people rated each of the 7 goals as a 10 importance completion; when we control for education, those highly educated are likely to demand less.
Condition 2: respondent received general information item about tradeoffs. Not a significant change—“Simply stating that decision about governmental programs require giving up one thing to get something else does not redice the overall demand to achieve all of the goals” (419).
Condition 3: a randomly selected 25% were told that people do best on these types of questions when they take time to think…” another 25% were told to act as if they were a public official. Both conditions were meant to increase cognitive processing and induce a greater willingness to overcome the unpleasantness with compromising some desired goals. (motivational instruction). Insignificant findings. Asking people to think doesn’t change their responses.
Condition 4: general information + motivational instruction = significance. (reduce demand, invoke tradeoffs).
Also, respondents are more likely to make tradeoffs in high information environments (57% of respondents choice tradeoff option).
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