Scholars estimate that 70-80% of the American public actively avoids political news. The rest of us are "highly engaged" political true-fans and, basically, party extremists. This dynamic has warped politics completely.
See The Other Divide, Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan: amazon.com/Other-Divide-P…
See Political Junkies, Claire Bond Potter: amazon.com/Political-Junk…
See Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation, expert in media and politics, Dannagal Goldthwaite Young: amazon.com/Wrong-Politics…
The highly engaged pay for news subs., give attention to political news, spend time on political news on platforms, vote in primaries, contribute to political campaigns. So news orgs, platforms, candidates, & parties shape themselves around the highly engaged, who pay the bills.
Folks who are disengaged still get news in ambient ways, usually from unreliable sources, second or third hand. They hear conspiracy lies & the "outrage of the day" that they can't easily avoid. And, yes, these folks do vote. Anyway, it's a big mess.
So while we highly engaged are doing good democracy, we're also the problem.
I think about this research a lot when I think about what it means to "communicate for the democratic way of life." Like, we would want people to be highly engaged, just not like that. And it feeds on itself, getting more outrageous, extreme, intense--and alienating. 😬
Hard to solve: systemic problems (two-party system, for-profit media, EC), ethical problems ($ in politics, people gaming the system), language problems (outrage-bait, appeals to hypocrisy, threats of force, conspiracy lies, prop), and platform problems (niche media, algorithms).
Plus our cognitive & emotional vulnerabilities (motivated reasoning, right-wing authoritarian personalities, fear & threat responses, etc). There's a lot of vulnerabilities to exploit.
We have more in common than we think, but it's to no one's advantage to convey that message.
This is what I study/work towards in my teaching and research (mostly, lately focusing on those who exploit our vulnerabilities 😒). I regularly do a public lecture on "communicating for the democratic way of life." It's interesting some folks would want to silence that. 🙄
Anyway, this
This is how life is worse for folks when politics is so polarized. These extremist conservative governors will claim they're rejecting the money bc of some <principle> but it's a cruel political calculation that people who get help will vote for Democrats.
Related: Inside the collapsing U.S. political-media-industrial-complex semafor.com/article/01/21/…
I wrote this up here: We, The Political Tune-Outs And Political Junkies via @resolutesquareresolutesquare.com/articles/0GD7S…
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