Unbiasing Political Decisions
Discussion 5a (due 30th Oct)
Why is watching sports more important to many prospective voters than watching the news? In your answer, mention the role played by rational ignorance and the cost of gathering information. (5 points)
Keeping unbiased is very important to voters and candidates. In this society, diverse factors greatly influence on making political decisions. Among those, mass media such as news and radios greatly influence on political sides of individuals. I think watching sports games can lead people to be unbiased to political issues.
Usually, people enjoy watching TV to learn what are happening and being issued. Also, it helps people to know trending information. Especially, near the Election Day, mass media shows many contents including about elections. Candidates intensively begin election campaigns through diverse mass media. Some candidates directly introduce themselves in the open-air to the citizens and some candidates inform their political plans through interviews in TV programs, news. Because each candidate boast and stress only their own plans, people are likely to tend to be sided. Moreover, each broadcasting company is connected to one candidate in real press field, so each broadcaster …show more content…
more emphasizes the connected candidate party by showing more campaign ads and interviews. According to an article, “Republicans are more likely to watch Fox and Democrats to watch MSNBC” (Ehrenfreund).
These days, many American tend to have rational ignorance for their political activities.
According to the textbook, rational ignorance is “the decision not to acquire information because the marginal cost of doing so exceeds the marginal benefits” (277). Many voters, in present, do not research about candidates because they think their votes “cannot make no difference to national defense policy” and acquiring information for making decision require enormous efforts for the election. Because people do not want to have cost of gathering information about the candidate, they prefer to watch sports game which does not require many efforts and makes them to be unbiased. Watching the sports game gives people more benefits: entertainment and simple
thinking.
Additionally, as my experience, I once watched an advertisement which introduced about the candidate, Hillary Clinton several months ago. The ad talked about Clinton’s future plans and her strengths for being qualified as the president. After watching this ad, I thought that Clinton is qualified to be the president. However, I realized that she has also negative facets after watching a debate between Trump and Clinton. I was the uninformed voter who was a target of the Clinton’s ads and realized that my political opinion did not influence greatly on the result.
Works Cited
Ehrenfreund, Max. “Yes, Watching Fox Does Make You More Conservative.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 5 Jan. 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/05/yes-watching-fox-does-make-you-more-conservative/?utm_term.
Why is watching sports more important to many prospective voters than watching the news? In your answer, mention the role played by rational ignorance and the cost of gathering information. (5 points)
Keeping unbiased is very important to voters and candidates. In this society, diverse factors greatly influence on making political decisions. Among those, mass media such as news and radios greatly influence on political sides of individuals. I think watching sports games can lead people to be unbiased to political issues.
Usually, people enjoy watching TV to learn what are happening and being issued. Also, it helps people to know trending information. Especially, near the Election Day, mass media shows many contents including about elections. Candidates intensively begin election campaigns through diverse mass media. Some candidates directly introduce themselves in the open-air to the citizens and some candidates inform their political plans through interviews in TV programs, news. Because each candidate boast and stress only their own plans, people are likely to tend to be sided. Moreover, each broadcasting company is connected to one candidate in real press field, so each broadcaster …show more content…
more emphasizes the connected candidate party by showing more campaign ads and interviews. According to an article, “Republicans are more likely to watch Fox and Democrats to watch MSNBC” (Ehrenfreund).
These days, many American tend to have rational ignorance for their political activities.
According to the textbook, rational ignorance is “the decision not to acquire information because the marginal cost of doing so exceeds the marginal benefits” (277). Many voters, in present, do not research about candidates because they think their votes “cannot make no difference to national defense policy” and acquiring information for making decision require enormous efforts for the election. Because people do not want to have cost of gathering information about the candidate, they prefer to watch sports game which does not require many efforts and makes them to be unbiased. Watching the sports game gives people more benefits: entertainment and simple
thinking.
Additionally, as my experience, I once watched an advertisement which introduced about the candidate, Hillary Clinton several months ago. The ad talked about Clinton’s future plans and her strengths for being qualified as the president. After watching this ad, I thought that Clinton is qualified to be the president. However, I realized that she has also negative facets after watching a debate between Trump and Clinton. I was the uninformed voter who was a target of the Clinton’s ads and realized that my political opinion did not influence greatly on the result.
Works Cited
Ehrenfreund, Max. “Yes, Watching Fox Does Make You More Conservative.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 5 Jan. 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/05/yes-watching-fox-does-make-you-more-conservative/?utm_term.