Throughout my life, I have been socialized to politics in a number of ways. First, the 1996 election comes to mind as the first political event I experienced. Second, the people that I am around on a day to day basis, mostly my parents, have had an affect on my socialization to politics. Third, some of the groups that I am part of have influenced how my ideas and opinions involving politics have developed. Other factors that have affected my socialization to politics include how much politics is talked about at my home, the activity of my parents in politics, and even such things as television and newspapers. All of these information channels have had an affect on my views and opinions on politics and the issues that politics deals with. Some of these sources, however, have a greater affect on me than others do.
The first political event I can remember was the 1996 presidential election. Back then I was a young little boy that was curious of the world and its purpose. However, I remember my mom constantly talking on the phone to her parents and sisters about the upcoming election. She made it sound like the end of the world was going to come if Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton. Finally, the time to vote rolled around. Both my parents left that evening to go vote. When they arrived back home, the TV stayed on constantly with my parents nervously walking back and forth as the states were revealing their winner. Of course, I didn't really understand what was going on, but none the less I could feel the tension in the room. During the 1996 presidential race between the two main contestants, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, Democrat and Republican, respectively, my parents were both strong supporters of Mr. Dole as you can tell. Therefore, nearly all of the opinions and facts that I was exposed to at home reflected their ideas. This information caused me to see Clinton as a diabolical fiend, which I then associated with the Democratic Party. The Republican Party then became the symbolic hero, striving for what is right. I now realize that there are usually both pros and cons to each party, but even now I am still slightly biased against the Democratic Party, which could have an affect on how I vote if I was torn between the two.
Sean Blanda’s, “The Other Side Is Not Dumb”, uses cultural examples concerning the younger American generation involving, the medias influence and peer pressure vs the actual facts and proof, involved while forming a personal opinion. The author emphasizes how the effects of pressure from our surroundings, such as: friends, media, and more, adjust our view of political and social subjects. He includes multiple cases of where your own ignorance can hinder your learning and interaction with others. If you continue to have a negative outlook on people who disagree with you, you’ll never be able to consider yourself a curious person and participate in social media. “We cannot consider ourselves “empathetic” only to turn around and belittle those that don’t agree with us.”- Mr. Blanda
In the novel The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan portrays the effects of childhood events on the roles and attitudes of the present lives each character must face. Particularly, Lena St. Clair felt restricted by her mother as she shields her from the dangers of the outside world. Consequently, when Lena did face trouble, she was unable to fight back and saw evil in everything she saw. Furthermore, the constant conflict that arose from the male superiority in Ying-Ying’s marriage and her miscommunications with her husband influenced Lena’s present behavior. Instead of expressing her own concerns, Lena allows her husband to make major decisions. Influenced by her childhood experiences and the troubles of the marriage between her parents, Lena inherits a passive role in her relationship to Harold.
Before that, I never paid attention to politics or the news; I was very self-centered and did not care about anything that did not directly affect my life. My mother also kept me very sheltered so I did not know what was happening out in the world. She did not want me to worry about things I could not control; her philosophy was that kids could not handle anything more complicated than the Disney channel. In fact, until I was eighteen, I was not allowed to watch anything other than the Disney channel and I could not read any books that were not rated for youth because she did not want me to have an opinion on political issues, especially if they were going to be different than hers. Looking back has shown me that my mother was very conservative in her political views which is completely different than my own centrist/liberal ideology; she did not want government involvement and hated any kind of governmental change while I believe that the government can change society for the better. For example, she firmly believed that the government had no right to interfere, or even discuss, same-sex marriage. Due to her own views, I did not develop any sort of political opinion until I was much
Socialization is a gradual process that takes place as we grow up. It is the process that aids in developing attitudes and opinions that allow us get along within a society. These beliefs affect the political views we hold later in life. Through social agencies such as family, schools, peers, and media we become aware of social rules and develop a social identity. (Introduction to Sociology Pg. 96) A product of this development is political socialization, which is the process of learning political attitudes and behaviors. The idea of political socialization helps in providing the answers to the questions concerning who votes. It aids in explaining how and why people participate in politics. The strongest agent in political socialization is the family. What this means is that most children adopt beliefs similar to those held by their parents. Therefore most people will believe in and vote for issues that are important to members of their family’s. The extent to which an individual is involved in the political process is shaped by his or her family’s level of involvement. For example, a child is less likely to vote if they are raised by parents who don’t regularly go to the polls on Election Day. Children of course, don’t always copy their parents’ political learning’s, but are often heavily influenced by them. As a result, most people end up favoring the political party that their parents generally identify with. Social Characteristics also affect how an individual will participate in politics. Whether a person is young or old, black or white, rich or poor, northerner or southerner will have a heavy impact on his or her political opinions and behavior.
Firstly, it is known that party affiliation is greatly influential in voter’s decisions. Because it is usually reinforced by society, party identification tends to be very strong, and typically unchangeable throughout an individual’s life. However, even though it might influence an individual’s decision on Presidential elections, it is more effective in shaping the decisions of voters on less-visible races. That is, it is more effective if the voters are not familiar with the candidates, than if they know them. After the 1960s, nevertheless, parties have become weaker on its influence to the public. This phenomenon, mostly associated to the influence of mass media, which portrays candidates by personality and not party, has made people less likely to develop a strong party affiliation. The evidence is shown on the number of people describing themselves as independents, and the rise of split-ticket voting. On the other hand, party identification among a large number of the most active voters has grown
The 5 agents of political socialization are through families, education, peers, religious influence, and the media. The family is a strong influence on thinking about politics because some children will automatically choose the same political party as their parents. Education is one of the major sources of socialization because children get information regarding politics at school and are involved in doing flag salutes or pledges in the classroom. Peers may also influence others if they are politically involved then it makes their friends interested as well. Religious influence will shape a person’s attitude regarding politics because many religions have their set beliefs such as Roman Catholics being liberal. The media definitely has influence on every person regarding politics because Americans spend a lot of time watching television and people get information through the media and create certain attitudes regarding
Television has affected every aspect of life in society, radically changing the way individuals live and interact with the world. However, change is not always for the better, especially the influence of television on political campaigns towards presidency. Since the 1960s, presidential elections in the United States were greatly impacted by television, yet the impact has not been positive. Television allowed the public to have more access to information and gained reassurance to which candidate they chose to vote for. However, the media failed to recognize the importance of elections. Candidates became image based rather than issue based using a “celebrity system” to concern the public with subjects regarding debates (Hart and Trice). Due to “hyperfamiliarity” television turned numerous people away from being interested in debates between candidates (Hart and Trice). Although television had the ability to reach a greater number of people than it did before the Nixon/Kennedy debate, it shortened the attention span of the public, which made the overall process of elections unfair, due to the emphasis on image rather than issue.
The phrase “the sky's the limit” is an idea that many strive for. To be able to go from nothing to the best, however, this idea is not always relevant in society. brief summary of the theme of privilege in the kite runner. briefly state how this theme is scene by author scholars and the authors. (hosseini). briefly connect power to wealth. There is a great extent of power given to wealthy people in society.
Supporters of nurture influences on the child becoming a criminal believe that one of the major factors is from the media, as the current era now depend heavily on technology. One of major influences from media is usually from televisions, films and especially the internet that contain strong violence. According to the article ‘15 films That Inspired Real Life Crimes’ (n.d), in 1993, two 10-year-old boys who were fans of the movie ‘Chucky’ had killed a woman, Suzanne Capper, by torturing and torching her to death. The two boys were chanting “I’m Chucky. Chucky wants to play” and played mimics from the movie on a tape. Other than that, according to statistics by Caroline Knorr (as cited in Emmons, 2013) , 90% of movies and 60% of television shows show some form of violence and this is a prominent because children usually watch 4 hours of television a day and have multiple risk factors that make the likelihood of them acting aggressively. Thus, it can be concluded that exposure to media violence will increase the likelihood of a child committing crime afterwards.
Such factors are their educational background, socioeconomic status, gender and other demographics. There will be a definite difference between a person who has an excellent academic background and a person who does not have such qualification. In the same way, socioeconomic status of a person also decides how well a person engages politically (Riedel and Sullivan, 2001). For instance, an individual who comes from a very lower class will not pay heed to political system of the country because his basic concern is to feed his children and family. His priorities will be different from a person who has all basic necessities. In the same way a middle aged person who has an adequate knowledge and experience regarding the political system of a country and a young person who is just an amateur will have significant differences of political attitudes and political efficacy. So attitudes and experiences also affect the political efficacy and ultimately the voting behaviors of the individuals (Sheerin and Celia Anne, 2007). Mass Media is one of the tools to build these attitudes and political
The process of political socialization is not merely a quick development of ideologies but an extended network of agents influencing us at every stage of our lives to implore us of good and proper behaviors and thought patterns to abide by. As stated in Texas politics, there is a difference in general socialization and political socialization but both are significantly influential in our critical development patterns (3.1).
Rather than being a neutral conduit for the communication of information, the U.S. media plays an intricate role in shaping and controlling political opinions. Media is extremely powerful in the sense that without an adequate functioning media, it is virtually impossible for a sophisticated social structure like the U.S. Government to exist. Henceforth, all known sophisticated social structure, have always dependent upon the media’s ability to socialize. The U.S. government generally will exploit the media, often times manipulating the enormous power of the printed word. Ultimately empowering the U.S. government, strengthening it with the ability to determine and control the popular perception of reality. One way in which government achieves this objective, is by its ability to misuse the media’s ability to set the agenda. Contrary to popular belief, media is in fact an enormous hegemony. In fact, separate independent news organizations relatively do not exist. Rather than creating an independent structured agenda of there own, generally lesser smaller news organizations adapt to a prepared agenda, previously constructed by a higher medium. Based upon this information alone, it is quite apparent that media functions in adherence to the characteristics of a hierarchy. This simply means that media is structured in a way that it operates functioning from top to bottom. This is also identical to the hierarchical nature of the human body, in that from the commands of the brain transferred through the central nervous system, the body responds accordingly. In order for the U.S. government to control and determine the public’s popular perception of reality, the government must shape and oversee the information that the media reports to the existing populous. This particular process of democracy is known and referred to by political scientists as cognitive socialization. However, many of us, who do not adhere to the cushioning of political correctness, refer to it as the propaganda machine. Numerous political scientists consider cognitive socialization to be the most effective form of political socialization. According to theory, cognitive socialization is doctored up information, which is strategically fragmented in such a manipulative manner, that the probability of its rationalization is highly predictable. The manipulative properties of cognitive socialization are so diabolical and Machiavellian in nature, that I consider it to be the ultimate perversion of the democratic process. In all seriousness, numerous intellectuals, and gentleman held in good stature agree, that cognitive socialization is the product of an evil genius.
Politics is one of the most debated topics in the country today. With the wide variety of values present in America, it is bound to be a difficult topic to discuss. I’ve grown up in a family of democrats with religiously republican grandparents. Considering myself an Independent leaning democratic, I can usually calmly talk politics with my family. This year’s election has made any conversation surrounding politics toxic to my family and creates a large argument of one side or the other and no in between.
First I would like to talk about how I came about these concerns. I was politically socialized by many different people and things. The people that affected me the most would have to be my parents. Growing up, they bestowed in me certain beliefs and values, which would stay with me for the rest of my life. Probably the next most important thing that affected me has to be school and peers. Being around many of your peers and teachers, you learn many things and take on certain values. By hanging around my friends for many years, we all took on each others beliefs and stands on issues. Finally, the thing that least affected me has been the media. The reason for this is mostly everything you see on television is negative or biases. To me, many of these programs are one sided just trying to get you to feel a certain way and my concerns and feelings will not be changed because of a television program.
Public Opinion is a collection of different individual’s attitudes about a specific issue. The public opinion is important to see what and how these individuals formed their attitude and concerns as towards certain issues. As in every specific issue, there is a specific of the attitudes of the public Political Knowledge refers to what we know about the government and politics as an individual. Political Preposition defines it a person who lacks in political information and will have a difficult time in understanding the aspects of and relating to the issue. In the reading Influencing Public Opinion, “The Nature of Origins of Mass Opinion (1992), Political Scientist John Zaller observed that only a few of us easily forms attitudes when questioned by an interviewer. Most individuals find that task extremely difficult because they lack political knowledge or information.” (Hernandez 2015c, 1) I found this experiment to be true because with the lack of knowledge or information you will find it extremely difficult in answering just a simple question about our government and politics. If we are informed about government and politics, we would see this question easy to relate