Sorry, you responded to my (perhaps overly snarky) first post while I was previewing.
I’ve honestly got no idea. But does my look at the Pew numbers cause you to assess their meaning any differently?
Sam, just read the last two paragraphs of the article:
Your premise is flawed, Sam Stone, because you have not accurately read the article. You’re isolating bits and pieces of the media and saying it reflects a national trend. Why not look at all the media, such as the NewsHour which the article states has a more liberal audience. And by the way, wouldn’t such a figure sort of answer your non-question question? Obviously the liberals are watching Jim Lehrer! So, case closed, problem solved. That’s where they’re getting their information.
Gosh, Sam Stone, here is your response to this:
Say what? How do you make such an illogical leap? Where does the article even REMOTELY suggest this? And where does the article talk about grassroots internet sites and books or, God help us, blogs? It seems to me you’re suddenly in the manufacturing industry here, because you’re certainly not finding all of this in the PEW article. And don’t give us any “insinuation” crap, the article doesn’t even do that. On the other hand, if you can show me specific quote or statistic on the aspect of “grassroots internet sites,” for example, in the site that I somehow missed, I will apologize at once.
And now we find there are periodicals like the New Republic that have equal appeal to both sides. You seem to have left that out as well.
Feh.
I thought the theory was made pretty clear from a large number of responses you received. Conservatives tend to be sheep, while liberals like to actually make up their own minds, and even have varied opinions in many areas. Maybe you have to learn to read between the lines better. 
Of course it’s possible. You are aware that Rush’s fans wear the dittohead label like a badge of honor, correct?
I am certainly more well read, and have a much broader scope of interests, than the conservative folks in my circle of friends, but that’s still just anecdotal.
I have no idea how we could actually test for this, but I’d be quite interested in the results, even though I can make a pretty educated guess at the outcome.
You see, it’s not always black and white, especially on the liberal side of things. Part of the reason is likely that we don’t all toe the party line on every single issue. I don’t know you, but I bet I can guess your stance on how to handle the Iraq issue, exactly what you’d like to see happen with welfare, and what you want us to do with affirmative action. I’m betting you can’t pigeonhole me as well. That’s not a slam by any means. In fact, we liberals would probably be more effective if we all did have the same stance on all issues, but then we wouldn’t be true liberals.
Here’s a theory. You get more conservative as you grow older, and all them Boomer liberals from the sixties are now conservative suburbanites. Once the boomers die off (good riddance i say j/k) the US will be more balanced.
Ooooooooooor…Liberals are actually doing stuff to save the world, while conservatives are having books ghostwritten and sitting on their butts watching TV news.
Good post, Gadarene. The CNBC numbers are simply explained: it’s an investment channel, so the people who watch will be more well-off and more likely to be conservative both because of that and because they’re used to listening to and approving of the business side of an issue.
I was going to say, and I think I will say, that based on my personal experience, there’s a stereotype that liberals are all college professors and other intellectual types with money. This is incorrect. The lower you go in terms of monetary success, the more likely the person is a liberal. And vice versa. The lower you go down the economic ladder, the harder a person has to work in order to make ends meet, which means they’re going to have less time to read or watch TV, because they’re out there working two or even three jobs to keep body and soul together.
Also, cable is a pay service, and therefore out of the reach of a good part of the liberal audience. Ditto for the Internet, pretty much. Any survey on any issue I’ve ever seen on the Internet leans well to the right in its responses, because the first requirement, unless the person is using library access, is that the person is a paying customer of an ISP.
Ooooooooor…people don’t like to self-identify as “liberal,” as has been noted by several smart people on this thread.
I think the OP is just so much whistling past the graveyard. Just over two years ago, more than half the people who bothered to vote chose Al Gore. Since then, the economy has tanked, we are teetering on the brink of war, and our constitutional rights are under assault. That’s a recipe for a Republican disaster in 2004, and conservatives see the writing on the wall, so they are ratcheting up the disinformation machine. But unless Patriot Act III does away with one man/one vote in the next 18 months, the outcome at the ballot box will be the same for Bush Jr. as it was for Bush Sr.: one term.
Hamish noted that progressives with a lower income have a high tendency to exchange and borrow books, from libraries and from each other. There’s also teach-ins, pamphlets, and the like.
As for me, I use a variety of news sources, including CBC News (both online and on the radio), The Globe and Mail, Métro, Hour, Mirror, La Presse, and a sampling of gay and lesbian publications.
I also follow such online sources as this board, my metro board, the Current Events section of Wikipedia, and the Fenceberry gay and lesbian news digest.
Finally, I get information from a variety of partisan sources such as the NDP, and the various activist groups I’ve put my email address down for who send me emails. I also keep my eyes out for people pamphletting and tabling at various events, as well as teach-ins, speeches, and so forth.
When I hear about a story that interests me, I will search widely for information on it in a variety of online and dead-tree media.
As for books, here is a sampling from my bookcase: Pay the Rent and Feed the Kids by Mel Hurtig; Voltaire’s Bastards, The Doubter’s Companion, The Unconscious Civilization, Reflections of a Siamese Twin, and On Equilibrium by John Ralston Saul; All You Can Eat, Shooting the Hippo, and The Cult of Impotence by Linda McQuaig, The Cult of Efficiency by Janice Gross Stein; Mari… ¿me pasas el poppers? by Miss Shangay Lily; Sissyphobia by Tim Bergling; and The World We Want and Better Living by Mark Kingwell.
But I’d have to say the biggest influence on learning about politics, in my life, has been long, long, long conversations with politically committed friends, in which we hash out what kind of world we want, why we’re not there now, how we can get there, and how we ought to live. And many, many cups of fair-trade coffee.
Chris Matthews is a liberal? Even a “liberal”?
In reading this thread I can’t help but laugh at the fact that there is a bipartisan consensus that more so than liberal media, mainstream conservative media is preaching platitudes to the choir and generally pushing emotional rhetoric in an easy to swallow format. All this talk about looking for a liberal Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Riley is ridiculous… the liberals should be proud of the fact that a blowhard like Rush or O’Reilly isn’t speaking for them. We do have the always amusing Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson but I think Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson more than cancel them out.
We don’t need slicker propaganda on the left, we need a political figure with charisma, a pair of testicles, and a vision for how this country should be run that is in line with modern liberals. So far the Dems appear lacking in all three. Give Chris Matthews, James Carville, and the American people someone to rally behind and I think Sam’s numbers would be very different.
I’ll never get over Dubya, the guy can barely read the big words in his speeches, has thrown the country into massive debt, elicited the largest global anti-war protests in history, and is purposefully dividing the world into those completely behind the American economic machine regardless of ideological reservations (notably Mexico, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Spain, and Turkey) and those who refuse to support in this endeavor. Two months after 9.11 Bush told America and he told the UN, “either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” He wasn’t kidding.
And yet half this country worships him because an act like that takes charisma, testicles, and vision. Personally, I think Rove is utilizing Bush’s natural charisma to its fullest, Rumsfeld is supplying the balls, and Cheney, Rumsfeld, and to a lesser extent Powell are responsible for the vision. Whatever the chemistry is, it sells a shitload of Ann Coulter books.
If this is the case, then I take back my statement in my first post here in which I said “I admit that the numbers from Pew and other things of percentage of liberals and conservatives that do various things are unaffected by this issue.” In fact, it seems the numbers from Pew are explained by the issue I raised.
This is a very amusing thread. Thanks for stiring the nest Sam.
This is the most elitist bunch of BS I have heard since my college days. Thanks for not letting me down there guys. Reafirms my faith in my choice on getting out of the ass group. You see, when I was a liberal, I always thaught liberals where the ones who truely cared about people. But the more I got to know the true liberals, the more I saw their thier self righteousness and hollier-than-thou snoby attitudes is what makes them “fundamentally liberal”. We have run the gamut here in our belittling of others. Even the “lessars” of your own party.
PS. Lissa are you sure your a liberal? You actually answered the question henstly without taking a cheap shot at those that don’t agree with you.
"Nope. CBS says 40% of its viewers are conservative, and only 12% liberal. NBC: 43.2 conservative, 15.5 liberal. ABC: 41.9/15.8. "
You have to take into consideration that many liberals honestly do not see themselves as liberals. That doesnt mean they aren’t, it just means they don’t think they are. Thats how Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and the like can look squarely in the camera and say that they are not biased and impartial, and actually mean it even though for many of us their bias is blatant.
Sam, is it possible that liberals are more willing to read/view material that doesn’t necessarily support their beliefs? That would explain the disparities you’re noting: maybe liberals read more conservative books than vica versa?
And if true, might lead one to ask: why are conservatives so needful to have their opinions affirmed in the media? Are liberals more confident in their beliefs? Sorry, I know that sounds inflammatory. 
And for the record, I don’t identify myself as a liberal, although you might consider me one (I voted for George W. Bush, but I also voted for Clinton – I tend to be fiscally conservative, socially liberal, moderately hawkish). I read National Review, New Republic, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and watch very little news on TV.
quote:
(snip)
… I’m seriously interested in your theories about why liberals aren’t paying attention. Or if you think they are, how and where?
How do conservatives learn about liberals? If you’re Sam, apparently by reading one article at Slate.:wally
I’m a liberal and darn proud of it. First of all, Sam, this is a very interesting thread and thank you for starting it.
I get my news from 3 daily newspapers, 2 national newsmagazines, network news (I prefer CBS) , MSNBC, and CNN. I’m not looking to reaffirm my political beliefs when I watch the news, I just want the facts. Some have stated that liberals perhaps are more willing to listen to opposing viewpoints and I believe there is some truth to that. I listen to Rush Limbaugh on occasion and judging from the callers, his audience seems to me more interested in having their beliefs affirmed than in hearing opposing viewpoints. If there are any Limbaugh fans out there that disagree, please chime in.
Some have mentioned the liberal bias in college campuses. You can’t deny that this exists, but I doubt it has much effect on most students. If you’re a math or science or engineering major, you can easily (I know I did) get through college and be totally unaware of the political philosophies of your professors.
who’s not reading whose posts? I posited this in my last post! (well, 'cept the bestseller angle)
I get my news from NPR, from nytimes.com, from CNN, and (most importantly) from The Daily Show – which for my money has the best political analysis on television, beating the pants off of Crossfire and the like.
But to be honest, and this is a shameful admission, I’ve become more disengaged from the news ever since Bush has gotten in office. It’s just really damn depressing, and after the last election, I’ve not been so sure that political engagement really mattered that much.
I do wonder if the figures might have been different had they been gathered four years ago. When there were occasional stories in the media that were positive for liberals, were liberals more engaged in the media?
Daniel
Sam- I think that a large part of this is that the bestsellers and those who listen to political talk radio seem to be seeking affirmation for their beliefs. E.g. the Limbaugh dittoheads, those who listen to Michael Savage.
I’m a huge liberal, but when he got popular I tried to listen to Rush for a month, to see what the big deal was, and I came away with the impression that the audience was made up of people who wanted to be reassured.
I am in no way saying that conservatives are not as intelligent as liberals- I just think that there is a philosophical makeup to liberals which does not translate well to the popular media.
YMMV, but anyone who is a John Prine fan can’t be all bad.
Jesus, Sam, calm down; not everybody’s jerking a knee. I certainly didn’t, though for some reason you misattributed me with calling you “stupid.” I came up with a perfectly good hypothesis: so-called “liberals” are less likely to seek affirmation in their beliefs.
Furthermore, it’s also been hypothesized that the self-identification issue understates the number of “liberals.” As I pointed out, it’s now fashionable for people to call themselves “progressives,” and as others have stated liberals may be more likely to consider themselves without partisan bias and to be sitting in the middle than do conservatives, who (in the United States today, anyway) are quick to self-identify as being on the right. Certainly you and I know a few folks on this board who are EXTREMELY partisan Democrats/liberals who seem remarkably unaware of their own bias. I can’t think of a conservative counterpart; even december will freely admit his own bias, at least in a general sense. My personal experience is that conservatives generally know they’re “Conservative” - that is, that their political opinions occupy a particular place on a sliding scale - while “liberals” seem slightly more likely to believe they are without bias and are just supporting the logical and right way to do things. I have relatives who are members of the NDP who honestly appear to be totally unaware of their own partisanship. It’s not universally true - there are many liberals who are conscious of their biases and many conservatives who aren’t - but it seems to me to be a trend; the liberal is likelier to think “I’m correct, my way is the correct way” and the conservative is likelier to think “I’m correct, my way is the correct way, and I’m conservative.” That’s just an anecdotal examination, but it seems to be one everyone agrees with.
The problem with the hypothesis/question posed in your OP is not that it’s right or wrong, but that the entire notion is so flimsily constructed that you’ll have difficulty getting anyone to agree on what the test is. The distinction between “liberal” and “conservative” is itself fraught with a thousand inconsistencies and errors of interpretation. Self-identification is not a good platform on which to construct a survey or an instrument, and attempting to come up with an independent definition of “Conservative” or “Liberal” will take you your whole life and you still won’t satisfy anyone.