Wrapping It Up: Chart Anaylsis
This is it, we've come so far. At the beginning of this blog, I hadn't the slightest clue about my political ideology and had little to no knowledge on the topics we've discussed. This has been a great learning experience! Mainly because these concepts are something I will need to know por vida.
But let us dive into the very last blog post! I'm going to be analyzing two charts for you, focusing on political parties and the media.
I thought this was an intriguing chart. As you can see, there is a quite a gap regarding how Democrats view the news media versus how Republicans view mass media. All in all, Republicans feel that news media is not moral, accountable for their mistakes or protecting democracy, whereas Democrats think that news media, for the most part, does all of those things. There is especially a difference in how Democrats feel about the press owning their mistakes versus Republicans and their feelings. Only a mere 8% of Republicans think the news admit their mistakes in comparison to the 47% of Democrats that feel media admit when they've done wrong. Independents, on the other hand, are in between both Democrats and Republicans concerning how they think about news media. What I found particularly interesting about this chart though, was that no majority of any party agreed with any of these statements (except for Democrats on media protecting news media). This makes me wonder: does anyone truly trust the news?
But, in the second chart that asks the following statements about the news media parties use most often, we see higher statistics for all parties. We see a whopping 35% increase for Republicans that agree the news media they most often use are accountable when it comes to owning their mistakes, and a 43% increase for Republicans when it came into question if the news media they most often use was morale. Statistics for Democrats and Independents all also increased when their most used media was in question.
And this makes sense, right? Everyone likes to think that their ideology is the best ideology, and they'll trust anyone or anything that reinforces this idea. And almost always, people will feel that the opposition is just straight up wrong in all aspects. So, it doesn't surprise me that most Democrats feel liberal media is the best, and that Republicans feel that conservative media is the best. These kinds of outlets reinforce peoples confidence in their party, which in turn makes people feel right about the things they support and what they stand for.
This idea of people wanting their beliefs reinforced is something that is also displayed in the graph below.
Now, if you have no knowledge of any of these media outlets, let me give you a quick rundown. Media outlets like Breitbart, Fox News, and The Blaze are known for being more conservative, so in turn, they appeal to Republicans and are viewed mostly by Republicans. Media outlets like BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, and The Guardian are known to be more liberal leaning, so it makes sense that their audience would be mostly Democrat. This once again is a case of people with political ideologies only aligning with things that further justify their decisions.
Whew! What a doozy, it's been an informative few weeks learning about all of this stuff. But my key takeaway here, and what I hope you all gain from this, is that we need to be more open to differing perspective. Everyone seems to be so black and white about all of this stuff, but what about the grey area? Variety, people! We need it to keep America fun and fresh, protecting democracy and celebrating individualism!
But let us dive into the very last blog post! I'm going to be analyzing two charts for you, focusing on political parties and the media.
I thought this was an intriguing chart. As you can see, there is a quite a gap regarding how Democrats view the news media versus how Republicans view mass media. All in all, Republicans feel that news media is not moral, accountable for their mistakes or protecting democracy, whereas Democrats think that news media, for the most part, does all of those things. There is especially a difference in how Democrats feel about the press owning their mistakes versus Republicans and their feelings. Only a mere 8% of Republicans think the news admit their mistakes in comparison to the 47% of Democrats that feel media admit when they've done wrong. Independents, on the other hand, are in between both Democrats and Republicans concerning how they think about news media. What I found particularly interesting about this chart though, was that no majority of any party agreed with any of these statements (except for Democrats on media protecting news media). This makes me wonder: does anyone truly trust the news?
But, in the second chart that asks the following statements about the news media parties use most often, we see higher statistics for all parties. We see a whopping 35% increase for Republicans that agree the news media they most often use are accountable when it comes to owning their mistakes, and a 43% increase for Republicans when it came into question if the news media they most often use was morale. Statistics for Democrats and Independents all also increased when their most used media was in question.
And this makes sense, right? Everyone likes to think that their ideology is the best ideology, and they'll trust anyone or anything that reinforces this idea. And almost always, people will feel that the opposition is just straight up wrong in all aspects. So, it doesn't surprise me that most Democrats feel liberal media is the best, and that Republicans feel that conservative media is the best. These kinds of outlets reinforce peoples confidence in their party, which in turn makes people feel right about the things they support and what they stand for.
This idea of people wanting their beliefs reinforced is something that is also displayed in the graph below.
Now, if you have no knowledge of any of these media outlets, let me give you a quick rundown. Media outlets like Breitbart, Fox News, and The Blaze are known for being more conservative, so in turn, they appeal to Republicans and are viewed mostly by Republicans. Media outlets like BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, and The Guardian are known to be more liberal leaning, so it makes sense that their audience would be mostly Democrat. This once again is a case of people with political ideologies only aligning with things that further justify their decisions.
Whew! What a doozy, it's been an informative few weeks learning about all of this stuff. But my key takeaway here, and what I hope you all gain from this, is that we need to be more open to differing perspective. Everyone seems to be so black and white about all of this stuff, but what about the grey area? Variety, people! We need it to keep America fun and fresh, protecting democracy and celebrating individualism!
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