Although I am not the lead blogger for this week, I have to mention one thing about this week's readings. In De Leo's article (NO) great emphasis is put on the misinformed society that is the U.S.A. I do agree with him to a certain point. There does exist a huge number of citizens who are clueless when it comes to politics, medicine, and economy. However, with that being said, I feel that a good chunk of the population is either confused and/or manipulated.
Here's an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If9EWDB_zK4
1 comment:
Great link, Rafal. Depressing, isn't it? The day before the election I got a call from the Democratic party taking a "poll." Ha ha.
The woman asked questions like, "If you knew Candidate "Dem" had served on a number of city boards, would that make you more or less likely to vote for her? If you knew that Candidate "Repub" supported a woman who forwarded racist emails, would that make you more or less likely to vote for him?"
After answering her questions, I said to her, "Look, I get that this is a push-poll. You're not really interested in my opinion, you just want to tell me about the Democratic candidate for mayor. So tell me about her. I'm up for more information. I really don't know much about the woman, (she was challenging a 2-term incumbent) so what else can you tell me that would make me want to vote for her?"
The poor woman was quite taken aback. She sounded really young, and said, "I really don't know anymore than what I have here in the questions I asked you."
She probably believed she was taking a truly scientific poll. Well, she was taking a poll, but it's purpose wasn't to elicit information FROM voters. It's purpose was to TRANSMIT information TO voters.
In itself, this is not a bad thing. It would be nice, though, if politicians did this in a less manipulative way.
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