(Mis)Informed: What Americans Know About Social Groups and Why it Matters for Politics PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download (Mis)Informed: What Americans Know About Social Groups and Why it Matters for Politics PDF full book. Access full book title (Mis)Informed: What Americans Know About Social Groups and Why it Matters for Politics by Marisa Abrajano. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Marisa Abrajano
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110889965X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 91
Get Book
Book Description
This Element examines just how much the public knows about some of America's most stigmatized social groups, who comprise 40.3% of the population, and evaluates whether misinformation matters for shaping policy attitudes and candidate support. The authors design and field an original survey containing large national samples of Black, Latino, Asian, Muslim, and White Americans, and include measures of misinformation designed to assess the amount of factual information that individuals possess about these groups. They find that Republicans, Whites, the most racially resentful, and consumers of conservative news outlets are the most likely to be misinformed about socially marginalized groups. Their analysis also indicates that misinformation predicts hostile policy support on racialized issues; it is also positively correlated with support for Trump. They then conducted three studies aimed at correcting misinformation. Their research speaks to the prospects of a well-functioning democracy, and its ramifications on the most marginalized.
Author: Marisa Abrajano
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110889965X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 91
Get Book
Book Description
This Element examines just how much the public knows about some of America's most stigmatized social groups, who comprise 40.3% of the population, and evaluates whether misinformation matters for shaping policy attitudes and candidate support. The authors design and field an original survey containing large national samples of Black, Latino, Asian, Muslim, and White Americans, and include measures of misinformation designed to assess the amount of factual information that individuals possess about these groups. They find that Republicans, Whites, the most racially resentful, and consumers of conservative news outlets are the most likely to be misinformed about socially marginalized groups. Their analysis also indicates that misinformation predicts hostile policy support on racialized issues; it is also positively correlated with support for Trump. They then conducted three studies aimed at correcting misinformation. Their research speaks to the prospects of a well-functioning democracy, and its ramifications on the most marginalized.
Author: Jennifer L. Hochschild
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806149418
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Get Book
Book Description
A democracy falters when most of its citizens are uninformed or misinformed, when misinformation affects political decisions and actions, or when political actors foment misinformation—the state of affairs the United States faces today, as this timely book makes painfully clear. In Do Facts Matter? Jennifer L. Hochschild and Katherine Levine Einstein start with Thomas Jefferson’s ideal citizen, who knows and uses correct information to make policy or political choices. What, then, the authors ask, are the consequences if citizens are informed but do not act on their knowledge? More serious, what if they do act, but on incorrect information? Analyzing the use, nonuse, and misuse of facts in various cases—such as the call to impeach Bill Clinton, the response to global warming, Clarence Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court, the case for invading Iraq, beliefs about Barack Obama’s birthplace and religion, and the Affordable Care Act—Hochschild and Einstein argue persuasively that errors of commission (that is, acting on falsehoods) are even more troublesome than errors of omission. While citizens’ inability or unwillingness to use the facts they know in their political decision making may be frustrating, their acquisition and use of incorrect “knowledge” pose a far greater threat to a democratic political system. Do Facts Matter? looks beyond individual citizens to the role that political elites play in informing, misinforming, and encouraging or discouraging the use of accurate or mistaken information or beliefs. Hochschild and Einstein show that if a well-informed electorate remains a crucial component of a successful democracy, the deliberate concealment of political facts poses its greatest threat.
Author: Thomas E. Patterson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806165685
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Get Book
Book Description
Americans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of “alternative facts” and the slow-motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us. We don’t have to search far for the forces that are misleading us and tearing us apart: politicians for whom division is a strategy; talk show hosts who have made an industry of outrage; news outlets that wield conflict as a marketing tool; and partisan organizations and foreign agents who spew disinformation to advance a cause, make a buck, or simply amuse themselves. The consequences are severe. How America Lost Its Mind maps a political landscape convulsed with distrust, gridlock, brinksmanship, petty feuding, and deceptive messaging. As dire as this picture is, and as unlikely as immediate relief might be, Patterson sees a way forward and underscores its urgency. A call to action, his book encourages us to wrest institutional power from ideologues and disruptors and entrust it to sensible citizens and leaders, to restore our commitment to mutual tolerance and restraint, to cleanse the Internet of fake news and disinformation, and to demand a steady supply of trustworthy and relevant information from our news sources. As philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote decades ago, the rise of demagogues is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson makes a passionate case for fully and fiercely engaging on the side of truth and mutual respect in our present arms race between fact and fake, unity and division, civility and incivility.
Author: Jessamyn Conrad
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1611459621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Get Book
Book Description
Now in its second edition, here is one of the first and only issue-based nonpartisan guides to contemporary American politics. It’s a very exciting time in American politics. Voter turnout in primaries and caucuses across the nation has shattered old records. More than ever, in this election year people are paying attention to the issues. But in a world of sound bites and deliberate misinformation and a political scene that is literally colored by a partisan divide—blue vs. red—how does the average educated American find a reliable source that’s free of political spin? What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don’t breaks it all down, issue by issue, explaining who stands for what, and why, whether it’s the economy, the war in Iraq, health care, oil and renewable energy sources, or climate change. If you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or somewhere in between, it’s the perfect book to brush up on a single topic or read through to get a deeper understanding of the often mucky world of American politics.
Author: Christopher Freiman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781138389007
Category : Wealth
Languages : en
Pages : 142
Get Book
Book Description
Do you feel like you're the only person at your office without an "I Voted!" sticker on Election Day? It turns out that you're far from alone - 100 million eligible U.S. voters never went to the polls in 2016. That's about 35 million more than voted for the winning presidential candidate. In this book, Christopher Freiman explains why these 100 million need not feel guilty. Why It's OK to Ignore Politics argues that you're under no obligation to be politically active. Freiman addresses new objections to political abstention as well as some old chestnuts ("But what if everyone stopped voting?"). He also synthesizes recent empirical work showing how our political motivations distort our choices and reasoning. Because participating in politics is not an effective way to do good, Freiman argues that we actually have a moral duty to disengage from politics and instead take direct action to make the world a better place. Key Features: Makes the case against a duty of political participation for a non-expert audience Presupposes no knowledge of philosophy or political science and is written in a style free of technical jargon Addresses the standard, much-repeated arguments for why one should vote (e.g., one shouldn't free ride on the efforts of others) Presents the growing literature on politically motivated reasoning in an accessible and entertaining way Covers a significant amount of new ground in the debate over a duty of political participation (e.g., whether participating absolves us of our complicity in state injustice) Challenges the increasingly popular argument from philosophers and economists that swing state voting is effective altruism Discusses the therapeutic benefits of ignoring politics--it's good for you, your relationships, and society as a whole.
Author: Nazita Lajevardi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108801048
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309
Get Book
Book Description
Discrimination against Muslim Americans has soared over the last two decades with hostility growing especially acute since 2016 - in no small part due to targeted attacks by policymakers and media. Outsiders at Home offers the first systematic, empirically driven examination of status of Muslim Americans in US democracy, evaluating the topic from a variety of perspectives. To what extent do Muslim Americans face discrimination by legislators, the media, and the general public? What trends do we see over time, and how have conditions shifted? What, if anything, can be done to reverse course? How do Muslim Americans view their position, and what are the psychic and sociopolitical tolls? Answering each of these questions, Nazita Lajevardi shows that the rampant, mostly negative discussion of Muslims in media and national discourse has yielded devastating political and social consequences.
Author: Ilya Somin
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804789312
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Get Book
Book Description
One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Often, many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This may be rational, but it creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin mines the depths of ignorance in America and reveals the extent to which it is a major problem for democracy. Somin weighs various options for solving this problem, arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. Somin provocatively argues that people make better decisions when they choose what to purchase in the market or which state or local government to live under, than when they vote at the ballot box, because they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and to use it wisely.
Author: Tom Nichols
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197763839
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Get Book
Book Description
"In the early 1990s, a small group of "AIDS denialists," including a University of California professor named Peter Duesberg, argued against virtually the entire medical establishment's consensus that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Science thrives on such counterintuitive challenges, but there was no evidence for Duesberg's beliefs, which turned out to be baseless. Once researchers found HIV, doctors and public health officials were able to save countless lives through measures aimed at preventing its transmission"--
Author: Jennifer L. Hochschild
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806149426
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Get Book
Book Description
In Do Facts Matter? Jennifer L. Hochschild and Katherine Levine Einstein start with Thomas Jefferson’s ideal citizen, who knows and uses correct information to make policy or political choices. What, then, the authors ask, are the consequences if citizens are informed but do not act on their knowledge? More serious, what if they do act, but on incorrect information?
Author: Sandrine Baume
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000079422
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Get Book
Book Description
The book identifies the impact of misinformation in the context of referenda. While the notion of misinformation is at the centre of current events and is the subject of several studies, it has rarely been addressed in the context of referenda or from a multidisciplinary and comparative perspective. This book fills this gap. Different legal orders have been chosen because of their extensive referendum practices (California and Switzerland); a recent legislative process on the issue of misinformation (Germany, France, and Canada); or recent experience with a vote during which it was considered that false information had been disseminated (Brexit, Catalan independence, and Italian constitutional referendum of 2016). By bringing together authors from the political and legal sciences, the book focuses on combining the expertise of researchers from different backgrounds and origins in order to propose innovative solutions. In this regard, the book is characterized by the fact that it does not aim to combat misinformation per se, but develops suggestions meant to guarantee the conditions of formation of the political will during referenda. The book will be an invaluable resource for legal scholars, political scientists, and specialists of political communication. Outside the world of academia, the book may draw the attention of policy-makers, practitioners, and journalists confronted with the challenges of misinformation or disinformation.
