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Factors affecting political socialization
Factors affecting political socialization
Factors affecting political socialization
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Political Socialization
Political socialization begins early on in life and is an ongoing process affecting individuals throughout. It is how people eventually identify personal beliefs and expectations in American politics. These political views can include our level of patriotism, faith in the democratic system, standards by which we hold governing bodies, and opinions regarding public policies. From the playground to the classroom, the office to the dinner table, much of our lives affect our political opinions. The most easily identified agents of this are family, schooling, peers, mass media, political parties and religious influences. Furthermore, these means indoctrinate us in the political society through four basic methods: latent, manifest, affective, and instrumental socialization.
The family influences children at a young age when parent's political viewpoints are unconditionally and naturally accepted. This information guides our first political preferences and opinions and statistically is the majority of the ideals we retain. Later on in life, as children mature and are able to make their own rational decisions, most retain the political values instilled in them at a young age and over time may relate them to peers. Varying agents of socialization, like education and media influence our political opinions as adults. While some of the tactics used by these modes are obvious, others are less direct. Supplementary information can be gained from methods appealing to long-
instilled morals and values, stemming from religion. Less basic political socialization is gained from clear and rational thought indicated by political doctrines.
Affective socialization appeals one's feelings and emotional express...
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...92, when Bill Clinton was challenging President Bush, was 7.5%. This statistic, while liberally skewed, wants voters to logically compare the figures and vote on the Democratic ticket in the presidential race this year.
Each realm of political socialization; latent, manifest, affective, and instrumental, stimulates our political attitudes toward relationships, environmental influences, and observed issues. These areas inoculate us in our views through various agents and mediums. These views are advanced and reinforced throughout our lives. Therefore, our political socialization is learning to be a part of our governance and the role we expect to play in a political society.
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Works Cited
Patterson, Thomas E. We the People. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000.
August, Melissa. "Numbers." Time 16 Oct. 2000 43.
Sean Blanda’s, “The Other Side Is Not Dumb”, uses cultural examples concerning the younger American generation involving, the medias influence and peer pressure vs the actual facts and proof, involved while forming a personal opinion. The author emphasizes how the effects of pressure from our surroundings, such as: friends, media, and more, adjust our view of political and social subjects. He includes multiple cases of where your own ignorance can hinder your learning and interaction with others. If you continue to have a negative outlook on people who disagree with you, you’ll never be able to consider yourself a curious person and participate in social media. “We cannot consider ourselves “empathetic” only to turn around and belittle those that don’t agree with us.”- Mr. Blanda
Socialization is a lifelong process of acquiring one’s personal identity; when we interact within the four agents of socialization—family, school, media, and peer groups—we internalize norms, values, behavior, and social skills. Since our values, norms, and beliefs about society are first learned with family, family is the most important and influential agent of socialization.
Political commentators often label American students not as liberals or conservatives, but simply as apathetic citizens unconcerned with political issues. The number of students venturing to the polls continues to be depressing to any advocate of a democratic form of government. Outside of political science classrooms, few students seem to be knowledgeable of simple political events and personalities.
A lot of things have played a role in my personal political socialization. Political ideology is the places where you have informed your beliefs from. The first example of where I get my personal political socialization is from my family. Second I have influence from my location in the U.S.A. Finally I get influence from Narragansett High School which is the school I currently attend. That is where I received my personal political socialization from.
As the mind matures and grows, new opinions are formed with the help of the revolutionizing consciousness of humanity. The human conscious allows humanity to develop individually and gain unique cognitive patterns and thinking processes. However, these opinions can be manipulated by environmental sources, like the media. The media’s puppet strings can be used to influence the minds of the masses and control their overall thinking process. It takes away an individual’s freedom to think for themselves and form their own opinions. Manipulation is a key ingredient in attaining support for a side of an argument. News networks have this ability to twist the minds of their listeners and unconsciously force them to believe in their words. Two of the
The education system and the peer group within the school system are important socialisation agents in an individual’s life. Children from an early age absorb the values, attitudes and beliefs of the society in which they participate (Ashman & Elkins, 2009).
Firstly, it is known that party affiliation is greatly influential in voter’s decisions. Because it is usually reinforced by society, party identification tends to be very strong, and typically unchangeable throughout an individual’s life. However, even though it might influence an individual’s decision on Presidential elections, it is more effective in shaping the decisions of voters on less-visible races. That is, it is more effective if the voters are not familiar with the candidates, than if they know them. After the 1960s, nevertheless, parties have become weaker on its influence to the public. This phenomenon, mostly associated to the influence of mass media, which portrays candidates by personality and not party, has made people less likely to develop a strong party affiliation. The evidence is shown on the number of people describing themselves as independents, and the rise of split-ticket voting. On the other hand, party identification among a large number of the most active voters has grown
Such factors are their educational background, socioeconomic status, gender and other demographics. There will be a definite difference between a person who has an excellent academic background and a person who does not have such qualification. In the same way, socioeconomic status of a person also decides how well a person engages politically (Riedel and Sullivan, 2001). For instance, an individual who comes from a very lower class will not pay heed to political system of the country because his basic concern is to feed his children and family. His priorities will be different from a person who has all basic necessities. In the same way a middle aged person who has an adequate knowledge and experience regarding the political system of a country and a young person who is just an amateur will have significant differences of political attitudes and political efficacy. So attitudes and experiences also affect the political efficacy and ultimately the voting behaviors of the individuals (Sheerin and Celia Anne, 2007). Mass Media is one of the tools to build these attitudes and political
The process of political socialization is not merely a quick development of ideologies but an extended network of agents influencing us at every stage of our lives to implore us of good and proper behaviors and thought patterns to abide by. As stated in Texas politics, there is a difference in general socialization and political socialization but both are significantly influential in our critical development patterns (3.1).
Rather than being a neutral conduit for the communication of information, the U.S. media plays an intricate role in shaping and controlling political opinions. Media is extremely powerful in the sense that without an adequate functioning media, it is virtually impossible for a sophisticated social structure like the U.S. Government to exist. Henceforth, all known sophisticated social structure, have always dependent upon the media’s ability to socialize. The U.S. government generally will exploit the media, often times manipulating the enormous power of the printed word. Ultimately empowering the U.S. government, strengthening it with the ability to determine and control the popular perception of reality. One way in which government achieves this objective, is by its ability to misuse the media’s ability to set the agenda. Contrary to popular belief, media is in fact an enormous hegemony. In fact, separate independent news organizations relatively do not exist. Rather than creating an independent structured agenda of there own, generally lesser smaller news organizations adapt to a prepared agenda, previously constructed by a higher medium. Based upon this information alone, it is quite apparent that media functions in adherence to the characteristics of a hierarchy. This simply means that media is structured in a way that it operates functioning from top to bottom. This is also identical to the hierarchical nature of the human body, in that from the commands of the brain transferred through the central nervous system, the body responds accordingly. In order for the U.S. government to control and determine the public’s popular perception of reality, the government must shape and oversee the information that the media reports to the existing populous. This particular process of democracy is known and referred to by political scientists as cognitive socialization. However, many of us, who do not adhere to the cushioning of political correctness, refer to it as the propaganda machine. Numerous political scientists consider cognitive socialization to be the most effective form of political socialization. According to theory, cognitive socialization is doctored up information, which is strategically fragmented in such a manipulative manner, that the probability of its rationalization is highly predictable. The manipulative properties of cognitive socialization are so diabolical and Machiavellian in nature, that I consider it to be the ultimate perversion of the democratic process. In all seriousness, numerous intellectuals, and gentleman held in good stature agree, that cognitive socialization is the product of an evil genius.
Socialization is a never ending process that continues to change our perspectives to help us learn and adapt to a social reality. This lifelo.ng process can be split up into two different parts; primary socialization, the first socialization an individual undergoes in childhood, and secondary socialization, when an individual adapts to a specific group within society. Although one may believe that secondary socialization has more power over primary socialization since it is current and therefore more relevant, primary socialization has more authority considering that it lays down the foundation for all future socializations. Our initial values, attitudes, and actions are more important since we internalize them
I feel that, for the most part, mine along with others in my age group’s concerns are not addressed by the political process. To answer this, I took a look at political socialization and how I was socialized politically. Some of my concerns include: minimum wage, social security, pollution and global warming, school loans, and legal ages. There are many reasons why, that I understand, that my generation’s opinions of these issues are not addressed, which I will talk about throughout this paper. Overall, the political process does not address our concerns and voices.
As progressively more accepted interdisciplinary and multi-method approach, which has now become a need of time, for interpreting in detail political phenomena at individual-level, the rapidly growing field of political psychology has made significant strides in illuminating the processes that are hidden behind the political affiliations, attitudes, feelings, decision making, behavior and above all in the interaction among the individual and group. For this reason, it is in a exceptional position to perk up the explanatory power of research in both psychology and political science that surrounds the national and international relations that either directly or indirectly deals with the individual psychology.
(Ibid9-11). Political socialisation begins early on in life and is an ongoing process affecting individuals throughout. It is how people eventually identify personal beliefs and expectations. These political views can include our level of patriotism, faith in democratic System, standards by which we hold governing bodies, and opinion regarding public policies from the classroom, the office, to the dinner table. Much of our life affects our political opinions.
Politics is one of the most debated topics in the country today. With the wide variety of values present in America, it is bound to be a difficult topic to discuss. I’ve grown up in a family of democrats with religiously republican grandparents. Considering myself an Independent leaning democratic, I can usually calmly talk politics with my family. This year’s election has made any conversation surrounding politics toxic to my family and creates a large argument of one side or the other and no in between.