Helluva speech delivered by Obama. I'm not a huge fan, but he did well. But I couldn't get over this observation: we may elect a motivational speaker as president.
That image of him on the stage, surrounded by two huge screens, the columns, the plants, the whole thing smacking of a motivational speaker. I could not get around that. Maybe it's just me.
I usually post political knowledge stuff but it's the silly season, so I'll have a go at McCain when he gets rolling in the GOP convention. My VP prediction for later today: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. It's the kind of quirky thing you'd expect of McCain, plus she's a woman (drawing the Hillary crowd? seems doubtful), has a compelling personal story (especially about her kid), is a social conservative (helping McCain with those folks). Anyway, she's my dark horse pick. We'll know in about three hours how wrong I was.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Knowing Obama
Tonight is Barack Obama's big speech, his night to shine, his (as some GOP wags call it) Temple of Doom. Temple? We've got 75,000 people in a football stadium, we've got Greek columns, we've got the Temple to Obama (yet another GOP line, the Republicans are having some fun with this). The Obama camp is busy today downplaying his speech, lowering expectations, spinning it down up until the point it's over and they spin it back up again. Gotta be disorienting.
The speech will go a ways toward solidifying who Obama is in the minds of many voters, or at least the ones who tune in tonight. What people know will be influenced not only by how well he does, but how well the pundits say he did.
And then it starts all over again, this time with John McCain.
How much do these speeches define the candidates in the American mind? Not all that much, not for the undecided, but energizing the base is a big deal too. When the polls come out we'll know a bit more.
The speech will go a ways toward solidifying who Obama is in the minds of many voters, or at least the ones who tune in tonight. What people know will be influenced not only by how well he does, but how well the pundits say he did.
And then it starts all over again, this time with John McCain.
How much do these speeches define the candidates in the American mind? Not all that much, not for the undecided, but energizing the base is a big deal too. When the polls come out we'll know a bit more.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Madonna, McCain, and ... Hitler?
Madonna is catching criticism for her concert footage that (I'm told) compares John McCain to Hitler and Robert Mugabe. The comparison is "outrageous, unacceptable and crudely divisive all at the same time," says the McCain campaign.
You bet.
I qualified my first graf with the "I'm told" because I looked at the YouTube video and see the comparisons but I also see flashes of other famous people, positive and negative. But hell, everyone loves a controversy.
You can watch the video yourself. See below. The music? Dull.
This is just a blip on the campaign spew, over in an hour, forgotten, with no real effect on what people know about the campaign. But I couldn't resist.
You bet.
I qualified my first graf with the "I'm told" because I looked at the YouTube video and see the comparisons but I also see flashes of other famous people, positive and negative. But hell, everyone loves a controversy.
You can watch the video yourself. See below. The music? Dull.
This is just a blip on the campaign spew, over in an hour, forgotten, with no real effect on what people know about the campaign. But I couldn't resist.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Joe Who?
Fifty-three percent of Democrats don't have enough of an opinion about VPstakes winner Joe Biden to have an opinion about the long-serving U.S. senator, according to one poll. Another poll of Americans has 23 percent who say they've never heard of him and another 28 percent don't have an opinion.
Joe Who?
Obviously anyone who has watched politics and policy closely know who Biden is, and to be honest it's not even Labor Day yet, so a huge chunk of Americans have other things to worry about -- like the cost of gas or kids starting school. Joe Who? is a perfectly reasonable response by many.
McCain's up next. Mitt Who?
Joe Who?
Obviously anyone who has watched politics and policy closely know who Biden is, and to be honest it's not even Labor Day yet, so a huge chunk of Americans have other things to worry about -- like the cost of gas or kids starting school. Joe Who? is a perfectly reasonable response by many.
McCain's up next. Mitt Who?
Friday, August 22, 2008
Informed vs Feeling Informed
I've always been fascinated by the tension between being informed and feeling informed. In other words, lots of people think they're politically informed when, by most objective standards, they're not.
In psychology you'll find concepts like tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon or feeling of knowing. These are kinda cool but they don't really apply to political knowledge, except maybe in rare cases. They are often situations where you know an answer but can't quite dig it out of your brain and provide it (yeah, getting older here, see this more often).
Self efficacy or, from the political science folks, internal efficacy, do a better job of capturing what I mean. Broadly speaking, these have to do with a sense of competence. Do I feel adequate in keeping up with the complexities of public affairs and politics.
Most people say, yeah. But a lot don't.
Since 1948 there's been a slow, slight decline in how people answer whether politics is too complicated for them. About of third of U.S. voters now agree it's too complicated.
But I've never been happy with internal efficacy as a measure of perceived knowledge. Related concepts, but distinct. Or at least I think so. I've used internal efficacy in my own research as a surrogate of perceived knowledge, which to me is more particular, more specific, getting at an estimate of how much information one has about a candidate or campaign or the political world at large. Internal efficacy is broader, more about one's overall capacity to make sense of the world. I might have low perceived knowledge on something, but I could be damn confident in my efficacy at finding stuff out and becoming informed.
An Aside: yes, this is getting kinda PhDweebish and doesn't' have anything to do with McCain, Obama, or who they choose as vice presidents. Like everyone else I'm waiting to hear the news, though it almost never matters who the VP is in the long run.
OK, Hollander, but so what? If people feel informed, if they sense they are adequately informed, then they will be less likely to attend to the news, to the media, to new information. They're full. And certain media can create this sense of being full, kinda like empty calories from a soft drink, and not eat their veggies (i.e., news). That's the consequence: people will fill up on empty, funny, silly stuff and feel informed when, perhaps, they're not.
In psychology you'll find concepts like tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon or feeling of knowing. These are kinda cool but they don't really apply to political knowledge, except maybe in rare cases. They are often situations where you know an answer but can't quite dig it out of your brain and provide it (yeah, getting older here, see this more often).
Self efficacy or, from the political science folks, internal efficacy, do a better job of capturing what I mean. Broadly speaking, these have to do with a sense of competence. Do I feel adequate in keeping up with the complexities of public affairs and politics.
Most people say, yeah. But a lot don't.
Since 1948 there's been a slow, slight decline in how people answer whether politics is too complicated for them. About of third of U.S. voters now agree it's too complicated.
But I've never been happy with internal efficacy as a measure of perceived knowledge. Related concepts, but distinct. Or at least I think so. I've used internal efficacy in my own research as a surrogate of perceived knowledge, which to me is more particular, more specific, getting at an estimate of how much information one has about a candidate or campaign or the political world at large. Internal efficacy is broader, more about one's overall capacity to make sense of the world. I might have low perceived knowledge on something, but I could be damn confident in my efficacy at finding stuff out and becoming informed.
An Aside: yes, this is getting kinda PhDweebish and doesn't' have anything to do with McCain, Obama, or who they choose as vice presidents. Like everyone else I'm waiting to hear the news, though it almost never matters who the VP is in the long run.
OK, Hollander, but so what? If people feel informed, if they sense they are adequately informed, then they will be less likely to attend to the news, to the media, to new information. They're full. And certain media can create this sense of being full, kinda like empty calories from a soft drink, and not eat their veggies (i.e., news). That's the consequence: people will fill up on empty, funny, silly stuff and feel informed when, perhaps, they're not.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Flight from Local News?
No one is hurting more than newspapers, in both advertising and circulation loss. You'd think that people have suddenly lost interest in local news, the one niche newspapers own.Nope.
A new Pew poll includes a question asking how much people follow local news. The percent who said "most of the time" hasn't really changed from 1998 - 2008. In 1996, 61% said they follow local news "most of the time." By 2008 that number is down only to 58%. Not much change, probably within the margin of error. So if interest in local news remains relatively strong, wassup? Newspaper readership and local TV news viewership in the same period have both dropped dramatically.
First, it's the large metro papers that are bleeding readers and advertisers. Weeklies are holding fairly steady. Large papers have a harder time today feeling "local." And few people report going online for local news, so we can't blame the Net. It's a complicated problem, this continued appetite for local news at the same time the major provider of local news -- the hometown paper -- is seeing drastic drops in readers.
How does this connect with what people know? Fewer reporters mean local politicians will get away with murder, or the political version of that. People will be less informed about what local government is up to, and it seems local blogs are not really filling that void. Not yet, at least. So how do people explain an appetite for local news but not buying the paper?
That's a damn good research question.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
New Political Knowledge Numbers
Those Pew people always crank out the best data. Their most recent report, which can be mined for many blogs, includes three knowledge questions and breaks down the results by various demographics and media use patterns. The link to the actual report is on an earlier blog.
First, the basics. The three questions asked respondents to identity Condi Rice (secretary of state), Gordon Brown (Brit prime minister), and which party controls the House of Representatives. People did better on Congress, less well on Rice, and least well on Brown. No surprise there. Men outscored women, even on the Condi Rice question, which kinda surprised me. GOPers do better than Dems, older people do better than younger people.
And then there's this long list of TV networks, programs, magazines, news sources, and so on and so on, comparing knowledge. Now this stuff really matters little unless you control statistically for all the demographics that predict who reads National Enquirer versus The Atlantic. In Pew's defense they try to do this, bluntly, by breaking down college grads versus non-grads.
The table is a bit confusing at first glance, but makes sense once you give it some thought. Elite media draw higher educated audiences and do much better than supermarket tabloid readers. CNN and Fox have demographic differences but those people do about the same on this test of knowledge.
Here's a fascinating bit of trivia: Hannity and Colmes has a lower educated audience, but those viewers do damn well on the knowledge test. Love the show, hate the show, it's doing something right.
There's a load of material here I want to get into. Saving it for later blogs.
First, the basics. The three questions asked respondents to identity Condi Rice (secretary of state), Gordon Brown (Brit prime minister), and which party controls the House of Representatives. People did better on Congress, less well on Rice, and least well on Brown. No surprise there. Men outscored women, even on the Condi Rice question, which kinda surprised me. GOPers do better than Dems, older people do better than younger people.
And then there's this long list of TV networks, programs, magazines, news sources, and so on and so on, comparing knowledge. Now this stuff really matters little unless you control statistically for all the demographics that predict who reads National Enquirer versus The Atlantic. In Pew's defense they try to do this, bluntly, by breaking down college grads versus non-grads.
The table is a bit confusing at first glance, but makes sense once you give it some thought. Elite media draw higher educated audiences and do much better than supermarket tabloid readers. CNN and Fox have demographic differences but those people do about the same on this test of knowledge.
Here's a fascinating bit of trivia: Hannity and Colmes has a lower educated audience, but those viewers do damn well on the knowledge test. Love the show, hate the show, it's doing something right.
There's a load of material here I want to get into. Saving it for later blogs.
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