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Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

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Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#111
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

I highly recommend the Economist.

Their articles mostly follow a dialectical format -- thesis, antithesis, synthesis, with about a third of the article spent on each one. I don't know of any other publication whose house style is so rigorous in this.

It's also highly editorialized, but very open and transparent about the positions it takes -- any bias they have is in the open, but is in the final synthesis after they've treated both sides.

It also doesn't fall neatly into any liberal/conservative divide. It tends to be socially progressive yet only interested in solutions that can be practically implemented, pro-free market but deeply concerned about externalities and the environment, pro-democracy but with hard-headed realpolitik.

Plus probably half of what each weekly issue covers is news you won't find in any other American publication, at least -- it's a global publication and one of the best ways to simply learn about the entire world's political and economic news.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#112
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

Google News gives you precisely this portfolio of vendors. Why would anyone subscribe to a single news vendor? I'd also advise adding WION, Al Jazeera, Axios, and The Guardian + BBC.

Google News is a dumpster fire. They include Sputnik and other govt propaganda sites from oppressive regimes.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the same thing, and I've noticed that this "they don't present the other side" thing is getting worse with time. I recently read [this HuffPo article][0] about how only 1% of American film characters are identifiably Muslim ; however, nowhere in the article does it even mention the share of Americans who are Muslim, nor the share of movie characters that are of other religions. These things are certainly obvious…

Interestingly Mormons are 2% of the US population (twice the Muslim %), and I can't think of a single openly Mormon character in any TV show I've ever seen.

Aside from HBO’s ‘Big Love’ I can’t think of any non-comedy fictions shows featuring Mormons.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#114
post #45
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing a lot of people miss is that there is a profit motive here. You can make money, sometimes a lot of money, by building a huge social media following being a political outrage merchant. You can find examples of people doing this on all sides, especially at the extremes where outrage and other powerful negative emotions can most easily be stirred up. All the outrage over "cancel culture" is not about censorshi…

Not really. Like a recent cancel attempt was Scott Cawthon, creator of the game series Five Nights at Freddy's. His crime? Voting for trump. No really, that's it. His games weren't political, and while he was open about who he was, he pretty much seemed to be inoffensive in practice. But since his fanbase has a lot of LGBT, they felt betrayed because he did so, and as far as i know he was definitely not trolling them…

But what exactly is this "cancel" attempt? Is he legally prohibited from expressing his views somewhere? It seems more like his former fans deciding they don't want to support him and "voting with their feet".

This guy can still produce whatever games he wants, say whatever he wants in a public forum, make his own websites declaring whatever he wants to declare, probably get on TV and talk about it, get licensure to establish a talk radio station and talk about it all day, ... He isn't legally muzzled, and he's hardly reached a point where he has no audience in society. This is the balance of free speech. You are allowed to hold and express an opinion and everyone else is too.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the same thing, and I've noticed that this "they don't present the other side" thing is getting worse with time. I recently read [this HuffPo article][0] about how only 1% of American film characters are identifiably Muslim ; however, nowhere in the article does it even mention the share of Americans who are Muslim, nor the share of movie characters that are of other religions. These things are certainly obvious…

Interestingly Mormons are 2% of the US population (twice the Muslim %), and I can't think of a single openly Mormon character in any TV show I've ever seen.

[deleted]

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#116
post #31

An underrated way to get out of your echo chamber is to actually talk to people in person. I lean fairly conservative, while my wife and her friends are very liberal. Whenever we happen to talk about political topics, most of the time we end up understanding where each other are coming from, even if we still don't agree.

Perhaps your political viewpoints are fairly mild compared to mainstream conservative discourse? It's difficult to have civil discourse with someone who says your identify (or the identify of those you love) should be outlawed or otherwise severely restricted by the state. That's been a core tenet of conservative politics and policy for several years now and I do not have the intellectual tools nor the emotional strength to find common ground with people who view the world that way.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#117
post #3

TBH I am over political news and over biased sites on both spectrums. Too much information and too much making hay. Soo much of it isn't news - and it hamstrings any politicians able to talk to the other side when they report on the minutiae.

I sometimes think American politics has been reduced to a census ... whether people claim blue or red are strongly correlated to income, age, urban/rural and other factors.

It's been like this forever and why gerrymandering is even a thing.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm not sure what your point is?" My point is that religious people, whether Christian, Muslim, or whatever, have a serious impact on our lives, and it would benefit everyone if we engaged with them as real people rather than fantasy stereotypes. Fictional media can help with this by giving us insight in to what people are really like. My contention is that this is more desirable than merely leaving them as faceless…

IMO it takes serious anthropological commitment to have a non-idiot understanding of a people. I feel this shouldn't be an individual job. Either your entire community has deep, embedded relations with another community or it doesn't. Otherwise it's like asking for better sources to read about Chinese culture, or like visiting China once a year for vacation. You can't read your way into being culturally competent. Yo…

Of course, seeing a movie on the Himalayas is no substitute for visiting the Himalayas, and that's no substitute to living in the Himalayas.

But I'd rather have there be movies on the Himalayas than not, even when we are aware it's not a perfect substitute for the real thing.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#119
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google News gives you precisely this portfolio of vendors. Why would anyone subscribe to a single news vendor? I'd also advise adding WION, Al Jazeera, Axios, and The Guardian + BBC.

The Guardian and the BBC basically represent the same political faction as say the New York Times and CNN in the USA, except obviously with more focus on UK stories. You can even see the overlap when they report on stories from the other country.

Inter-rater reliability is very useful. You don't simply seek novelty, right? Not having the vocabulary to discuss the agreement and disagreement of the BBC or the Guardian would be a mistake if you want to talk about news fluency, as they have made a name for themselves in the west.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered not “identifying”? Just choose your opinions on issues a la carte. Or even don’t have an opinion on a bunch of issues. I started doing that and now I’m kind of politically homeless but oh well. I do notice that I can talk to either side now which is cool and no one automatically puts up their defenses.

It's challenging to not identify with one "side" when the other side loudly and proudly support policies that directly harm (or would harm) many people you care about. It's natural to band together when under attack, and in fact it's really difficult not to.

It's fine to feel this way while acknowledging that the "other team" has gotten at least one or two issues right.

For example, lots of left-leaning Asian Americans agree that race-based affirmative action is unconstitutional, which puts them at odds with many of the people they'll likely vote for.

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