Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers • Hacker News Board

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#301

Post by swiley » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

vsskanth wrote: 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…

IMO: any organization employing "journalists" is engaging in mass manipulation for hire at this point (both left and right.)

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#302

Post by _-david-_ » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #53

heresie-dabord wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make money [...] by building a huge social media following being a political outrage merchant. I think you have summarised both the nature of the US "information economy" and the state of political discourse in the US.

When you want to know why Fox News does anything it does, just take a look at it's marketshare [1]. That's why. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-networ...

I couldn't fully see what was posted in the article since it was wanting me to sign in or something, but I will assume that it was showing Fox had a larger market share than the alternatives.

The reason why is NBC, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc are far more in competition with each other than Fox is with them. There are no major right of center competitors to Fox. This results in most right of center tv news watchers going with Fox. If there was only one left of center news channel Fox would closer to even with it.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#303

Post by bluGill » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

rejectedandsad wrote: post #107

Impassionata wrote: post #88

Haidt's work gets trotted out a lot, but it was prior to the fascist turn of the Republican party. Now Republicans live in a mostly imagined political reality.

It’s quite hard to reason with a political movement in which half don’t believe the guy that got 51% of the vote and 306 electoral votes isn’t the president, to the extent of sympathizing with an attack on the electoral vote count and “auditing” the ballots repeatedly. A majority of the house republicans caucus effectively voted to bypass the will of the people during the electoral vote count - makes the Democratic o…

No, but the democrats did spend 2017 looking for every excuse to impeach Trump they could find.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#304

Post by jonathankoren » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #188

sandyarmstrong wrote: post #124

> I would be shocked if 60+% of American film characters are identifiably Christian How often do you see Christmas used as a plot device? Or a church used as a setting? Or a priest character? I would be shocked if context didn't imply that > 95% of American film characters are Christian.

Christmas and church settings don't indicate Christianity. Most secular Americans celebrate Christmas or attend weddings and funerals in Christian churches or officiated by Christian clergy. Indeed, for a very long time it was the norm to have one's own funeral or wedding at a church, officiated by Christian clergy, even if one was atheist or agnostic and even today it's quite common.

This is true, but also underlines the very point the article was making. In the United States, Christianity is the default. Characters are typically only identified if the stray from the default. Furthermore, given the sheer imbalance of identities in the country, it’s a disingenuous to claim that say Batman is equally likely to be Zoroastrian, because he’s not explicitly stated not to be.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#305

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

ggggtez wrote: post #87

The problem of course is that not every issue needs a "both sides" treatment. Sometimes there are questions of objective facts that reading lies from alternative sources do not actually help you in understanding the truth of the world. The person who desperately tries to cite "50/50" liberal and conservative sources in the article is the worst kind of fence sitter. Sometimes, one side or the other is just wrong, or t…

[deleted]

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#306

Post by bena » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

joshuaheard wrote: post #32

I have been reading daily news for 50 years. When I first started reading the news, it was objective. It portrayed facts with little opinion. Then during the Reagan presidency, I noticed a trend towards liberal bias in the media. This is well documented by MRC.org. To counter this, conservative talk radio was born, and Fox news was created. In the din of infinite media outlets, the major media outlets must stand out…

I would have to say that maybe it's not the news that has changed, but your view of it.

The media has always had biases. How can it not, it's run by people.

Look at the propaganda during the Spanish-American War. That's the most obvious U.S. example of how biased media can be. And we enjoy the temporal distance to not be invested in the events so we can evaluate it from a third-party perspective.

Are you saying the media became less biased after that then more biased?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#307

Post by JAlexoid » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #203

cm2012 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably 70% of the student body was hindu, muslim, or jewish. But they still participated as an american cultural thing, they just didn't do anything church related with it.

Interesting. Where exactly was this? I grew up in a major Jewish population center in the United States, most jews did not celebrate christmas outside of the ceremonial going out for chinese food. Muslim students also did not celebrate xmas. This is an urban center on the east coast.

> I grew up in a major Jewish population center in the United States, most jews did not celebrate christmas outside of the ceremonial going out for chinese food.

Going out for Chinese food is literally a tradition of said holiday. It's as much as celebration, as having a family gathering for atheists "for Christmas".

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#308

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

vsskanth wrote: 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…

[deleted]

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#309

Post by myko » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

mrkstu wrote: post #134

Impassionata wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascists don't care about truth. It's that simple. And people are that easy to mislead. At least for a while.

Sigh- voted against Trump twice. The fact of the matter is the Ratcliffe Letter [0] shows that President Obama was given an briefing well before the Steele Dossier was leaked to the media that the Russians' had picked up intelligence that exactly that kind of fake evidence would be planted by the Clinton campaign. I really don't believe in a coincidence that big and unless Steele was simultaneously a Russian and Clin…

> fake evidence would be planted by the Clinton campaign.

Again, this never happened. First of all, the Steele Dossier was raw intelligence, not meant to be taken as fact. It was paid for initially by Republicans, not HRC's campaign, so pinning it on her is disingenuous. Also, there were clear links between the trump campaign and Russia, including some that led to arrests of his folks and some that should have (Jr's meeting that trump helped him lie about).

Your own link (and common sense) disputes your claim that it was proven HRC's campaign did this:

> The IC does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.

It was Russian disinformation creating and spreading the lie that you are boldly posting on here.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#310

Post by ecshafer » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #270

mrfusion wrote: post #93

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.

Speaking personally... I did this until a good friend pointed out that while I identified as independent, I basically agreed with most conservative view points. I come by my views honestly. My typical response goes like this .. I hear about something presented on the local news in a very fact based way. I form an opinion. Then I read others opinions and 9/10 times I match with the conservatives. I mean sometimes I fi…

Part of the problem with this is "what is a conservative?". Democrats and Republicans are both economically right wing, pro imperialism, anti workers rights, pro the wealthy. There is no left wing major political party in the united states. The difference between the two parties is on cultural values, cultural progressives vs social conservatives. It is possible to be economically left wing, and socially conservative (roughly 25% of people fall into that group).