Thomas Paine embodied the purpose of the American war of independence when he wrote in Common Sense that ¨we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.¨ This enlightenment era faith in reason ironically could be seen as propaganda for the American cause. Paradoxically the success of a free society relies on instilling certain values in the population, the opportunities and encouragement provided by men like Paine. He knew that lasting success would require the political ideals of representative democracy to be embedded into the culture. Political socialization is the manner in which individuals gain such political attitudes, and is done through social institutions. Of increasing importance in the era of mass communication is the mass media who have a responsibility for engaging citizens in the political system. The question is what role the media actually has in producing political attitudes, a question with major consequences for American democracy. Although the extent that media effects public opinion is limited by cognitive biases, the media does influence our perception of political issues. By controlling what issues to focus on and the context we consume information, the media gives us the symbols to express our political behavior.
Political socialization is a lifelong process of transmission and reinforcement. The process can be understood as a succession of stages corresponding to age. Each stage is important because age decides which agents of socialization are the most influential. The primary influence are parents. At an early age a child's parents are the first authority figures. From parents children learn the value of obeying authority, and the parent in turn cares for the child. This results in benevolent leader imagery, when children trust whoever is in charge to do what is right most or all of the time (Clawson 46). At this time opinion of political leaders is a projection of their parents. Children’s opinion of political leaders like the president are generally more positive. School is another important agent of socialization, which like the parent instills trust in authority rather than particular political views. Those particular values begin to form during adolescence. A 1965 study by Kent Jennings and Richard Niemi asked both parents and children their partisan identification and opinion on a number of issues. What they found was party identification correlated higher, at .47, than agreement on other issues (Clawson 52). Jennings and Niemi interviewed the same children again in 1997. The strength of the partisan relationship remained higher than for party identification than on individual issues. This strength however relies on the stability of the parent’s political views over time and the degree of political involvement the parent takes with the child, as basic as conversation. The individual voter’s own preferences are set in early adulthood, roughly from age 18 to 26. Jennings and Niemi’s subject’s views shifted somewhat during this period then remained stable into adulthood (Clawson 54). Early adulthood is a time of great personal change, political development being a part of that. Also of great impact is collective memory. There are events which are so
wide ranging in their effect that the help form the political consciousness of a generation. The Civil Rights Era changed the Democratic Party loyalty of young white southerners who associated Democrats with an activist federal government and racial equality. My 99-year-old Great-grandfather is an example of a pre 1960’s southern Democrat, from Arkansas, who associates the party with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and World War 2. He sees the Democratic Party as having the interests of poor southern farmers, having lived through the Great Depression. Today’s adult southerners associate the Republican Party with southern identity. The federal government wishes to socially engineer southern life out of existence. The greatest opportunity to shape voters minds is during early adulthood after a major social event.
There is however considerable evidence that political socialization is more complicated than a host of environmental factors. There might be biases inherent in our individual thinking that limit the effect of political socialization. This consideration lies at the intersection of politics and psychology. Psychologists have developed many personality tests to gauge disposition like introversion vs extroversion, but the most important for politics is the ¨Big Five¨ test. Abbreviated as OCEAN or CANOE, the test measure five personality traits; openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The hypothesis would be that liberals should be higher in openness and conservatives lower. In 2003 John Jost and Arie Kruglanski reviewed 88 studies for Psychological Bulletin of the American Psychological Association and found that there are personality differences between liberals and conservatives (Mooney 60). Political conservatism was linked to less openness to new experiences . Openness entails risk taking behavior, which an ideology of order and stability would shun. A yale study by Alan Gerber found that the effect of openness on political preferences is higher than educational attainment or income level, predicting a 71% correlation with liberalism compared to 59% and 56% for education and income respectively (Mooney 66). Perhaps more challenging to political socialization is the possible effect of genetics. The study of genetic influences on behavior was pioneered from twin studies which take two individuals with identical DNA, monozygotic twins, raised in the same environment and record their political preferences. From these monozygotic twin studies, around 40% of our political preferences are linked to our genes (Mooney 118). Our political beliefs are formed in the mind and brain before they find ways to express themselves.
Even with the assumption of cognitive biases in information processing, there is still room for agents of political socialization to act. Even if the mind is not a total blank slate, what allegiances we form from our personalities and the symbols we express them are created through language. Cognitive linguist George Lakoff calls this context setting framing. ¨Framing is about getting language that fits your worldview. It is not just language. The ideas are primary-and the language provokes those ideas, especially those ideas¨ (Lakoff 4). Lakoff argues that conservative success since the 1980s has been the result of conservative media manipulating a set of moral values rooted in how we see the world, a “strict father morality” and a ¨nurturing parent morality.¨ These values are like those expected from political socialization, derived from metaphors gained from childhood experience reinforced by one’s culture. “Conservatives, through their think tanks, figured out the importance of framing, and they figured out how to frame every issue. They figured out how to get those frames out there, how to get their people in the media all the time. They figured out how to bring their people together” (Lakoff 16). Even if our political views are rooted in our personality, the media can sell us politicians and policies by presenting them in a way that concords with that personality. President George W. Bush wanted to win over voters who had a “nurturing parent” personality, so he pitched himself as a “compassionate conservative” arguing against those who say we are “slouching towards Gomorrah”, a loaded term for those who favor a strict conservative view of morality. Bush wished to present his conservative values as tough love, not punishing sin. A disposition does not in a practical way dictate loyalty.
Nowhere is this context framing power of the media more prevalent than in today’s media. The proliferation of ideological media, starting with conservatives but with liberals having caught on, has given us evidence of how this power manifests itself. Partisan media’s power is in taking those who are already inclined to agree and giving their thinking direction. Talk radio and cable news have become regular sources of information, despite being opinion and not news. The number one cable channel is Fox News, whose top programs are political opinion shows. MSNBC followed suit by hiring Keith Olbermann and his protege Rachel Maddow, becoming a liberal alternative to Fox. Liberals also forayed into talk radio with the now defunct Air America. The goal of these programs is not to change people’s minds but to reinforce those who are inclined towards their position, as the format of Cable allows for comparatively smaller audiences who pay subscriptions to remain profitable. It has come to a point where a controversial news story has two guests, one from each side, to debate the issue. The show Crossfire on CNN makes an entire show of presenting an issue not from a factual point of view but from the common frames of left and right. This seems like a way to ensure objectivity, but it suggests that there are only two ways to look at an issue. The media adopting this format socializes viewers into partisan political positions on particular views. Whether they know it or not, the media is playing a role in our political loyalties.
That political socialization is limited to the association of sentiment with symbolism makes the power of the media less powerful, but also paradoxically more dangerous. Media can reinforce already held views by adding strong imagery or manipulate our perception of political issues with stereotypes. The mass media doesn't create opinions for us, but it has the ability to direct our loyalties. We can become socialized to positions which do not serve our interests. But there is the potential to bridge our personal differences and socialize those who might be set one way or another regardless of facts not by persuasion but coming to their worldviews. Positive reinforcement can instill democratic values in those who might not be inclined naturally, by transference. Political socialization then is not a value free tool, the way in which we gain attitudes affects how we interpret political reality. The media with its powerful imagery can be the most important agent of political socialization. There is a power to make the world over again, for better or for worse.
wide ranging in their effect that the help form the political consciousness of a generation. The Civil Rights Era changed the Democratic Party loyalty of young white southerners who associated Democrats with an activist federal government and racial equality. My 99-year-old Great-grandfather is an example of a pre 1960’s southern Democrat, from Arkansas, who associates the party with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and World War 2. He sees the Democratic Party as having the interests of poor southern farmers, having lived through the Great Depression. Today’s adult southerners associate the Republican Party with southern identity. The federal government wishes to socially engineer southern life out of existence. The greatest opportunity to shape voters minds is during early adulthood after a major social event.
There is however considerable evidence that political socialization is more complicated than a host of environmental factors. There might be biases inherent in our individual thinking that limit the effect of political socialization. This consideration lies at the intersection of politics and psychology. Psychologists have developed many personality tests to gauge disposition like introversion vs extroversion, but the most important for politics is the ¨Big Five¨ test. Abbreviated as OCEAN or CANOE, the test measure five personality traits; openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The hypothesis would be that liberals should be higher in openness and conservatives lower. In 2003 John Jost and Arie Kruglanski reviewed 88 studies for Psychological Bulletin of the American Psychological Association and found that there are personality differences between liberals and conservatives (Mooney 60). Political conservatism was linked to less openness to new experiences . Openness entails risk taking behavior, which an ideology of order and stability would shun. A yale study by Alan Gerber found that the effect of openness on political preferences is higher than educational attainment or income level, predicting a 71% correlation with liberalism compared to 59% and 56% for education and income respectively (Mooney 66). Perhaps more challenging to political socialization is the possible effect of genetics. The study of genetic influences on behavior was pioneered from twin studies which take two individuals with identical DNA, monozygotic twins, raised in the same environment and record their political preferences. From these monozygotic twin studies, around 40% of our political preferences are linked to our genes (Mooney 118). Our political beliefs are formed in the mind and brain before they find ways to express themselves.
Even with the assumption of cognitive biases in information processing, there is still room for agents of political socialization to act. Even if the mind is not a total blank slate, what allegiances we form from our personalities and the symbols we express them are created through language. Cognitive linguist George Lakoff calls this context setting framing. ¨Framing is about getting language that fits your worldview. It is not just language. The ideas are primary-and the language provokes those ideas, especially those ideas¨ (Lakoff 4). Lakoff argues that conservative success since the 1980s has been the result of conservative media manipulating a set of moral values rooted in how we see the world, a “strict father morality” and a ¨nurturing parent morality.¨ These values are like those expected from political socialization, derived from metaphors gained from childhood experience reinforced by one’s culture. “Conservatives, through their think tanks, figured out the importance of framing, and they figured out how to frame every issue. They figured out how to get those frames out there, how to get their people in the media all the time. They figured out how to bring their people together” (Lakoff 16). Even if our political views are rooted in our personality, the media can sell us politicians and policies by presenting them in a way that concords with that personality. President George W. Bush wanted to win over voters who had a “nurturing parent” personality, so he pitched himself as a “compassionate conservative” arguing against those who say we are “slouching towards Gomorrah”, a loaded term for those who favor a strict conservative view of morality. Bush wished to present his conservative values as tough love, not punishing sin. A disposition does not in a practical way dictate loyalty.
Nowhere is this context framing power of the media more prevalent than in today’s media. The proliferation of ideological media, starting with conservatives but with liberals having caught on, has given us evidence of how this power manifests itself. Partisan media’s power is in taking those who are already inclined to agree and giving their thinking direction. Talk radio and cable news have become regular sources of information, despite being opinion and not news. The number one cable channel is Fox News, whose top programs are political opinion shows. MSNBC followed suit by hiring Keith Olbermann and his protege Rachel Maddow, becoming a liberal alternative to Fox. Liberals also forayed into talk radio with the now defunct Air America. The goal of these programs is not to change people’s minds but to reinforce those who are inclined towards their position, as the format of Cable allows for comparatively smaller audiences who pay subscriptions to remain profitable. It has come to a point where a controversial news story has two guests, one from each side, to debate the issue. The show Crossfire on CNN makes an entire show of presenting an issue not from a factual point of view but from the common frames of left and right. This seems like a way to ensure objectivity, but it suggests that there are only two ways to look at an issue. The media adopting this format socializes viewers into partisan political positions on particular views. Whether they know it or not, the media is playing a role in our political loyalties.
That political socialization is limited to the association of sentiment with symbolism makes the power of the media less powerful, but also paradoxically more dangerous. Media can reinforce already held views by adding strong imagery or manipulate our perception of political issues with stereotypes. The mass media doesn't create opinions for us, but it has the ability to direct our loyalties. We can become socialized to positions which do not serve our interests. But there is the potential to bridge our personal differences and socialize those who might be set one way or another regardless of facts not by persuasion but coming to their worldviews. Positive reinforcement can instill democratic values in those who might not be inclined naturally, by transference. Political socialization then is not a value free tool, the way in which we gain attitudes affects how we interpret political reality. The media with its powerful imagery can be the most important agent of political socialization. There is a power to make the world over again, for better or for worse.
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