OFF: Re: HW: Tour Shirts

[M Holmes]

Paul Mather writes:

> Wow, that's a lot of sweeping statements for just one paragraph. :-)

Not bad eh?

> But, given that you appear to be saying that media (tabloids, etc.)
> *can* bias people's viewpoints, don't you think that a biased
> viewpoint could bias voting, also?

If someone were utterly unaware of it yes. How easy is that during an
election?

> In other words, that they can
> subtly tell people for whom to vote?

Subtly? The British tabloids wouldn't know subtly if it bit them on the
tits.

> I happen to think that a lot of people (the majority, actually) are
> pretty entrenched in their voting habits, and will seek out media that
> reinforces those beliefs.

Agreed.

> So, I don't think the aforementioned bias will have much of an effect
> in actually causing a change of vote in that bloc.  But, there are, I
> hear tell, a group of all-important "swing voters" (the "undecideds")
> that can be influenced to "vote for the other person this time
> around." In a close election, those people hold the key to victory.

More specifically the floating voters in marginal seats.

> If those people can be "informed" such that a particular editorial
> favourite is cast in a certain positive light, it may tip the scales
> just enough.

I believe there's some evidence that the floating voters tend to try to
inform themselves a little better than the average voter, which might
provide some antidote to such behaviour. Also, surely in that the
political parties go all out to influence the vote without any attempt
at subtlety at all, how mcuh effect at the margin would the tabloids
really have during an election? I'm prepared to concede there's some
minor effect, but not that would swing a normal election. Then there's
the question of whether the different tabloids would simply cancel each
other out.

> BTW, I also happen to think that it's not so easy to discern that
> you're being "told how to vote." (I think of this as "marketing
> science at work.") Even those who consider themselves sophisticated
> enough to realise they are being manipulated face an uphill struggle
> in sorting fact from fiction, and a fiction be be all that's needed to
> sway someone.  ("Remember the Maine!") Most individuals lack the
> resources and breadth of knowledge in all areas to be able to
> ascertain categorically whether or not they're being lied to.

Sure, but most of the time we don't need to.  There's a good economic
argument that an election is just such a time:  In Britain, the
difference between what the two parties propose as state spending is
around 2% of GDP.  That's about 20 billion quid. Call it 40 million
adults in the UK and that's 500 quid per year each. Let's be generous
and say that the state is 40% less efficient at using cash than private
industry in terms of spending on what the individual actually wants and
we get a total cost per annum of getting the vote wrong of 200 quid.

They have a 50% chance of just guessing the best way to vote and so
game-theoretically we can halve that cost to 100 quid, or 2 quid per week.

Call the average wage about 20K, and that means that anyone who spends
more than 5 hours in a year, or 6 minutes per week, even thinking about
how to vote has pretty much wasted their time.  Even at minimum wage
you'd only just over double it to say 15 minutes per week, which is less
than most people will spend reading a newspaper anyway.

In short: not only does voting only encourage them, if you read a
newspaper at all, you've spent too much time on it.

Of course specific small groups of people can come out of an election
rather better than the average. Politicians effectively make their money
as fairground shysters: take ten quid from a dozen people and announce
the lucky winner of 60 quid. The other 11 will hope they win next time.
If another shyster is selling How To Win leaflets, then quibbling with
their source of income is Missing The Point Gold Medal territory.

> "Issue ads" are the big thing now (to avoid fund-raising limitations).

In the US? McCain-Feingold reasons?

> They're telling people how to vote.  They're just not naming names
> explicitly.  Sometimes the agenda is easy to spot; sometimes not so.

If I were there, I might well want to know who's been trying to cramp
the First and Second amendments and these could produce useful information.

> My biggest beef against tabloids is that many people still hold the
> subliminal quaint notion they are newspapers, and so may put some
> stock in what they print (despite the poor reporting and many past
> instances of demonstrated lying).  As you and others have pointed out,
> they are more about entertainment.  Hopefully, one day they'll be seen
> as such on an emotional as well as an intellectual level.

Well, if you want to encourage skepticism, you're preaching to the choir
on that one!

Cheers

Mike