PJ Feichtmeier
J201
Juin-Yi Tsai
November 3 2013
Recently, it seems as though both
Democrats and Republicans share only one thing in common, a mutual animosity
towards one another. This has become
even more apparent over recent elections and legislation attempts. Both Matthew Nisbet and Dietram Scheufele
depict this increasing polarization through an article entitled The Polarization Paradox: Why
Hyperpartisanship strengthens conservatism and undermines Liberalism. In the article, the authors describe the
polarizing trend of politics over recent years by analyzing elections and the
role of politics in them and the strategic use of media. The article shows a strong bias towards the
liberal side, however it does point out numerous flaws with the liberal agenda
and the ways in which liberals have handled politics in recent years. Nonetheless, it endorses them by defending
the fact that liberals would have no reason to become increasingly polarized if
the GOP had not already done so. The
article cites numerous examples as to how political leaders have helped to
further this polarization, however every leader mentioned participating in this
process was a conservative. Furthermore,
liberals who seem to also increase the polarization by implanting similar tactics
as the GOP tend to be praised, a contradicting thought.
To understand the bias within the
article, I researched both of the authors to comprehend their point of view and
why they would have written this article in such a manner. After some digging, I found both authors to
be credible sources on the topic of political science and mass communication. Both authors are currently professors, Nisbet
at the American University and Scheufele at UW-Madison, and both have received
extensive education, Nisbet graduated from Cornell and Scheufele was once a
Cornell faculty member before moving to UW and studied in Germany extensively,
and both have written and reviewed dozens of scholarly articles. I believe that both of these authors are
credible because they use credible sources and use specific facts to support
their arguments, whether they are arguing against the GOP or against the poor
way in which both sides use media for their personal gain. Furthermore, both authors study the use of
media in politics, mainly on its influences within elections. Since the article bases most of its evidence
around political campaigns and how they are managed, I believe that the
evidence provided in the article is reliable.
Also, it would explain how the authors were able to really dive into the
way the two parties use media as a way to both further polarize their
ideologies and motivate voters to show up on Election Day.
After my research, I believe that
Nisbet is mainly responsible for the biasness in the article. I came to this conclusion by looking at some
of his other work, which has to deal extensively with global warming, a crucial
part of the Liberal platform. Also, he
is a professor at American University, which is located in Washington D.C.,
clearly a political hub within the United States. Although Scheufele is another author of the
article, I believe his influence was mainly in the area of the effects that
media has had on the polarization and the ways in which it has been used to
further the polarization.
References
Nisbet,
M. (2013, 11 3) Matthew C. Nisbet. Retrieved from http://scholar.harvard.edu/matthewnisbet/
Nisbet,
M. C., & Scheufele, D. A. (2012, Summer). The polarization paradox: Why
hyperpartisanship strengthens conservatism and undermines liberalism. The
Breakthrough Institute. Retrieved from http://thebreakthrough.org/journal/issue-3/the-polarization-paradox/
Scheufele,
D. (2013, 11 3) Dietram Scheufele Short Bio. Retrieved from http://www.dietramscheufele.com
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