“Low information voters” and the political press

[salvorhardin]

Jay Rosen discusses a new theory of political parties, and how it should inform what political journalists do.

It’s called A Theory of Parties. I am going to take a little time here to summarize what it says:

“Parties no longer compete to win elections by giving voters the policies voters want,” they write. “Rather, as coalitions of intense policy demanders, they have their own agendas and aim to get voters to go along.”

In the United States, at least, parties are not politicians of a similar mind banding together to win elections, but “coalitions of narrow interests in pursuit of policy demands” that aren’t necessarily in the interest of the broader public. They “only strive to please voters when necessary to win elections.” But this constraint often doesn’t amount to much “due to voters’ lack of information about politics.” The goal, sometimes conscious, sometimes not, is to “cede as little to voters as possible.” The need to win elections occasionally requires “genuine responsiveness,” but parties mainly push their own agendas and try to get voters to acquiesce.

...

Here is the part that intrigued me as the author of PressThink: “To explain the substantial autonomy we believe parties enjoy, we posit an ‘electoral blind spot’ within which voters do not monitor party behavior.” Through various institutional devices, like complex party rules and procedural votes that no one understands, the major parties “seek to exploit lapses in voter attentiveness” and “keep the electoral blind spot as large as possible.”

...

So the blind spot is where voters get screwed because they don’t know what’s going on. Far from being a problem for the two major parties, it’s actually their goal to find these spots and enlarge them. The blind spot is the point at which voters stop paying attention because the costs of figuring out what’s really going on are too high. When the parties discern where that point is, it’s open season for the interest groups who know how the system works.

Full blog post: http://pressthink.org/2011/11/low-information-voters-and-the-political-press

[bbgrunt]

1. interesting. Seems to describe the

process pretty well even with not so low information voters.

edit to add: the constant memes of "they are out of touch" and "they are living in a bubble" are facile excuses to convince voters that if they only contacted their reps about various issues they will have an impact. No, the politicians will only find more devious and opaque ways to avoid the popular will.

[salvorhardin]

2. Yeah, that's what I thought

It also lines up well with Chomsky and Herman's manufacturing of consent too.

[themadstork]

7. Also lines up with what David Foster Wallace posited about the more nefarious uses of boredom in his

last book.

[undeterred]

3. Let's call it "the dumb zone" instead of a "blind spot".

[woo me with science]

4. Yup. It is classic corporate salesmanship and manipulation.

This is the key part:

“Parties no longer compete to win elections by giving voters the policies voters want,” they write. “Rather, as coalitions of intense policy demanders, they have their own agendas and aim to get voters to go along.”

The goal is not to represent the voter anymore. The goal is to sell a product that they want to sell, that will bring them the most profit. Part of advertising a sucky product is making sure that your customer loses sight of the fact that better options are even possible.

Our government corporation offers two products. One is bad and the other is worse. They use the worse to get us to accept the bad.

Today we have DEMOCRATS cheering a destructive and inhumane TRILLION dollar austerity program during the worst economy since the Great Depression...because it sounds better than the other alternatives that were dangled before us over the past few months.

We have forgotten what we used to stand for, and what we have the right to demand from people who are supposed to be our representatives.

I would say that is a huge freaking blind spot.

K&R

[Uncle Joe]

5. On a bumper sticker that would read.

"They want to sell you, not tell you."

[salvorhardin]

6. Kick for the third shift

[burrowowl]

8. K&R

[salvorhardin]

9. Kick for a new day

[DCBob]

10. This goes well with the recent study that Faux newz viewers are dumber about news..

than those who dont follow news at all.

[Romulox]

11. I disagree. If the two parties agree to shut out a particular POV, no amount of "information"

will allow voters to have their positions represented.

For example, most voters support the legalization of cannabis, but neither party represents this p.o.v. This is not a matter in which more study by the public will effect an outcome more in line with the public's desires; since BOTH parties refuse to represent the will of the majority on this issue, an informed electorate makes no impact on the outcome.