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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

#341

Post by sudosysgen »

rootusrootus wrote: post #289
whimsicalism wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist skews conservative in the sense that it is who I wish the conservatives were.

The Economist strikes me as very liberal, and not particularly conservative. And by that I mean the traditional definition of liberal, not Democratic-Party-of-the-US liberal.

Conservatism is a relative term. You can be a conservative right-winger, a conservative socialist, a conservative liberal or any other kind of conservative as long as your social situation fits it. Many articles by the Economist are conservative in that they intend to defend and conserve the status-quo, especially when dealing with foreign policy.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#342

Post by Moodles »

boredprograming wrote: post #263
losvedir wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They dont talk about or even cover the same things Yeah, this is a key thing to realize. People seem to think that Fox News, for example, just trots out falsehoods all the time, but if you skim the news, I'd say very little is actually factually incorrect. It's more about the story selection, who they choose to interview to get the quote, how they contextualize (or don't) statistics, etc. But once you realize that,…

Fox New's actual news coverage is mostly truthful. But a huge amount of their airtime is opinion pieces and media personalities who spout BS all day. Tucker Carlson is probably the most notorious. Plus they have Republican politicians calling in and showing up constantly, and they're allowed to say whatever they want.

I mean, sure, but why are we talking about Fox specifically? CNN, MSNBC, etc. are just as bad. I find this ironic since this thread is about how bias isn't necessarily about outright falsehoods, but story selection and what is not said :)

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#343

Post by axguscbklp »

jfrunyon wrote: post #314
axguscbklp wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies show that "left bias" in mainstream media is much greater than it is among Americans in general. For example: "Compared with 2002, the percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who claim to be Democrats has dropped 8 percentage points in 2013 to about 28 percent, moving this figure closer to the overall population percentage of 30 percent, according to a December 12-15, 2013, ABC News/Washington Post national…

The percentage of the American population which is either Democrat or Republican is consistently[1] well[2] above[3] 90%[4], so I'm not sure where you're getting 54%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidentia... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidentia... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_Sta…

Those links show that out of all Americans who vote in presidential elections, well above 90% vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. However, that does not mean that well above 90% of Americans are either Democrats or Republicans.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#344

Post by [deleted] »

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

#345

Post by pydry »

losvedir wrote: post #210
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…

> They dont talk about or even cover the same things Yeah, this is a key thing to realize. People seem to think that Fox News, for example, just trots out falsehoods all the time, but if you skim the news, I'd say very little is actually factually incorrect. It's more about the story selection, who they choose to interview to get the quote, how they contextualize (or don't) statistics, etc. But once you realize that,…

RT is similar.

Last week in English news it headlined an anti masker/antivax March in London which the BBC didn't mention at all.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#346

Post by anm89 »

fancyfish wrote: post #287

The elephant in the room is that this sort of enlightened centrism, while it sounds noble, rests on several ill-formed assumptions. The first is that, by reading from both sides, they’ll balance and you’ll arrive at an enlightened center. This assumes the Overton Window is balanced, stationary, and not tilted to one side or the other. You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further l…

Attacking the center is always the craziest narrative to me. It's saying: not only is it not okay to disagree with me and be on the other side, it's also not okay to not passionately agree with my exact side. The only right way to view these complex issues is to sign your name to join my party and then hold the party line, and everything else is unethical. I can't imagine a more obnoxious political viewpoint than that.

That enlightened centrism subreddit listed below is up there with the most toxic sub reddits I've seen on reddit where people "dunk" on the idea that anyone would be so brave to have the gall not to conform precisely with progressive rhetoric on anything. It somehow seems like some of these people are more offended with the center than the other side.

Anyway yeah, I'm a centrist and it's not because I'm trying to be neutral, it's because both sides are terrifying cesspools the further you get to their extremes and the best outcome for partisan politics is to give either of those groups as little power as possible. It's not some abstract goal of evenly seeing both sides on the issues.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#347

Post by UncleOxidant »

firebaze wrote: post #315
UncleOxidant wrote: post #154

> “Until you can passionately make arguments for both sides,” she says, “you don’t understand the issue.” While this may be true for many issues, I don't think this is true for all issues. Imagine someone saying that just prior to the civil war on the issue of slavery, for example.

As much as I despise slavery I'd definitely be interested in understanding the way slavery was rationalized (if it was? if not, how did they cope with the suffering etc.?). We have to understand the principles allowing such an emotional and rational detachment from our set of ethics to prevent something like this happening again. This is quite similar to Germany's handling of the 2nd World War. You cannot just preten…

I think we agree. Understanding why something was rationalized is important (slavery, the holocaust, etc). But being able to make an impassioned argument for those things isn't necessary for that kind of understanding.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#348

Post by edoceo »

elefanten wrote: post #135
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 doesn’t signify religion in America. And I can’t remember the last time I saw church in a movie that wasn’t a comedy using the setting for a set-up

Boondock Saints. Has church, not comedy.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#349

Post by lotsofpulp »

clairity wrote: post #323
lotsofpulp wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even while christianity and white folks are the majority in the US, it makes sense numerically to have these other aspects of humanity well represented, in addition to white and/or christian. I’m not white, Christian, or Jewish, and this sentence does not make sense to me. Making entertaining is a business, and it has nothing to do with what percent of people worldwide have what skin color or tribal affiliations. I…

ah yes, the token characters, there to either not alienate a foreign market or to meet some superficial diversity quota. the point is that in a world without significant bias, we'd expect to see many more people of color and of other religions (to name just two aspects) being represented because of sheer numbers and because talents are distributed widely. but that doesn't happen in this world.

The only world without a bias might be one where everyone is a clone and has the same bank balance.

In the real world, there will always be bias. Height, voice, gender, political affiliations. Forget about bias in US media, there are multiple Hollywood within India itself. And there is nothing wrong with that. They cater to different audiences.

And it does not “make sense” for to expect a group of Tamil film makers to add a couple white, black, Chinese, and Latin American characters of their movie is about people who speak Tamil.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#350

Post by throwawayboise »

boredprograming wrote: post #263
losvedir wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They dont talk about or even cover the same things Yeah, this is a key thing to realize. People seem to think that Fox News, for example, just trots out falsehoods all the time, but if you skim the news, I'd say very little is actually factually incorrect. It's more about the story selection, who they choose to interview to get the quote, how they contextualize (or don't) statistics, etc. But once you realize that,…

Fox New's actual news coverage is mostly truthful. But a huge amount of their airtime is opinion pieces and media personalities who spout BS all day. Tucker Carlson is probably the most notorious. Plus they have Republican politicians calling in and showing up constantly, and they're allowed to say whatever they want.

I mean, the same is true about CNN's opinion pieces, or MSNBC's, etc, they are just on the opposite side of the spectrum.
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