The widening divides between different political camps and the hollowing out of the middle ground has grown almost in perfect lockstep with the growth in internet and social media usage. Whereas a generation ago there was more or less consensus about most big things, the pivot away from consuming mainstream news media to getting our "news" from online echo chambers/rage factories has evolved our views on everything to us versus them. The public opinion bell curve has morphed into a horseshoe.
That's true. Although you could argue that having mainstream media set the agenda by selecting what they think we should be talking about was an artificial (and damaging) **narrowing** of the political discourse.
Quite likely. A generation (or two) ago, extreme views were not given air time. Weirdos and extremists undoubtedly found it challenging to connect with like minded folk.
I believe that to be the case. The availability of alternative media has resulted in perhaps more distance and animosity between the so-called left and right. The underlying premise and threat posed by such is that the spoils of political victory presupposes the potential to weaponize the monopoly of coercion inherent in the state against the other side thus ignoring the most critical thought of the role of the state which is the essence of policy. Those opposed to most of the coercive presence of the state have little opportunity in a mindless tribalism of party politics vying for the marginal vote of the definitionally compromised mushy "middle" of the spectrum. The left, being backstopped by the institutions and end stage democracy are safely ensconced in power (regardless of which party is "in power") as we transition into bankruptcy and tyranny.
Interesting analysis – as always with your work. Thanks, for this.
It raises some questions. How did the analysts determine what was left or right? Was there an objective metric? Typically, most observers feel they're "centred" and measure others against their own subjective position. How did they map policies against the linear political spectrum: How did they decide if one policy proposal was left or right? And, how did they decide how much it was left or right? These tend to be subjective Interpretations. How did the analysts manage observer bias?
I should probably stop being lazy and look up the study myself!
Fascinating! I had a very quick scan of the link. Thanks.
I still wonder how they interpret their coding.
e.g. How do they associate a "Military:negative" coding of a quasi-sentence as a Left/Right attribute? Is there a rule? Is it a judgment call by the coder (seems unlikely given the rigour of the coding method) Is there an objective reference that serves as a standard?
How do they decide how far Left/Right it is? Is it simply the Quantity/Frequency of Left/Right-associated codes?
I'm not a political scientist, just a political strategist. There could be a commonly accepted methodology in the literature I would not be familiar with. Though, I am familiar with how people think, decide and behave in the wild. One man's right-wing nut job is another man's left-of centre whacko – though they're both observing the same actor.
Excellent questions. I'm not nearly familiar enough with the methodology to be able to answer them, but all the examples of their choices that I've seen so far "taste" reasonable. Perhaps this is something an AI model could answer more directly.
The widening divides between different political camps and the hollowing out of the middle ground has grown almost in perfect lockstep with the growth in internet and social media usage. Whereas a generation ago there was more or less consensus about most big things, the pivot away from consuming mainstream news media to getting our "news" from online echo chambers/rage factories has evolved our views on everything to us versus them. The public opinion bell curve has morphed into a horseshoe.
That's true. Although you could argue that having mainstream media set the agenda by selecting what they think we should be talking about was an artificial (and damaging) **narrowing** of the political discourse.
Quite likely. A generation (or two) ago, extreme views were not given air time. Weirdos and extremists undoubtedly found it challenging to connect with like minded folk.
I believe that to be the case. The availability of alternative media has resulted in perhaps more distance and animosity between the so-called left and right. The underlying premise and threat posed by such is that the spoils of political victory presupposes the potential to weaponize the monopoly of coercion inherent in the state against the other side thus ignoring the most critical thought of the role of the state which is the essence of policy. Those opposed to most of the coercive presence of the state have little opportunity in a mindless tribalism of party politics vying for the marginal vote of the definitionally compromised mushy "middle" of the spectrum. The left, being backstopped by the institutions and end stage democracy are safely ensconced in power (regardless of which party is "in power") as we transition into bankruptcy and tyranny.
Interesting analysis – as always with your work. Thanks, for this.
It raises some questions. How did the analysts determine what was left or right? Was there an objective metric? Typically, most observers feel they're "centred" and measure others against their own subjective position. How did they map policies against the linear political spectrum: How did they decide if one policy proposal was left or right? And, how did they decide how much it was left or right? These tend to be subjective Interpretations. How did the analysts manage observer bias?
I should probably stop being lazy and look up the study myself!
Thanks for the thought-provoking post!
I wondered about those questions, too. In fact, the project is very open about their specific methodologies:
https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu/tutorials/primer
Fascinating! I had a very quick scan of the link. Thanks.
I still wonder how they interpret their coding.
e.g. How do they associate a "Military:negative" coding of a quasi-sentence as a Left/Right attribute? Is there a rule? Is it a judgment call by the coder (seems unlikely given the rigour of the coding method) Is there an objective reference that serves as a standard?
How do they decide how far Left/Right it is? Is it simply the Quantity/Frequency of Left/Right-associated codes?
I'm not a political scientist, just a political strategist. There could be a commonly accepted methodology in the literature I would not be familiar with. Though, I am familiar with how people think, decide and behave in the wild. One man's right-wing nut job is another man's left-of centre whacko – though they're both observing the same actor.
Excellent questions. I'm not nearly familiar enough with the methodology to be able to answer them, but all the examples of their choices that I've seen so far "taste" reasonable. Perhaps this is something an AI model could answer more directly.