Over the past couple of years, the media has become more political. From news channels having a bias and tv shows including political lessons. It has become apparent that political issues follow us everywhere.
In this post, I want to discuss why politics has become such a major component of the media. Prior to the internet, politics and political opinions were not as accessible as it is now. Politics would be something that was read in newspapers, heard over the radio, and hardly talked about in public. Furthermore, celebrities were not as outspoken about political issues as they are today.
Today, you hear about politics everywhere. From the moment you go on your phone to casual conversations with friends and family. Everyone seems to be politically involved and wants their opinions heard. According to Pew Research, “Overall, a large majority (67%) reports having engaged in at least one of these activities in the past five years; nearly half (46%) say they have done so in the past year alone.” This is a significant increase compared to previous years and elections. Politics have increasingly become a major component of American society. On election day, school is canceled and the facilities are used for voting.
Democracy and politics are ingrained in our culture and is spread the media. The media has contributed to an influx of political participation and political opinions.”Much of the past decade’s research on social media has shown a positive relationship between offline and online political participation (Boulianne, 2015; Skoric, Zhu, Goh, & Pang, 2016)”. With this increase a lot of media platforms have emphasized specific biases to attract a certain audience to their pages. The issue with this is that people are having their opinions validated and become more invested in their opinions.
Although the media increases participation, it is also the ground for political battles and it provides false information. We recently saw social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok become major components for the election and political media. Although these platforms are great for campaigns and quick facts, they are not in-depth scholarly articles. Therefore, many people are reading falsified information or form an opinion without adequate information. 
The media can serve many important functions and can enhance political participation. However, we should still be aware about the information we read before engaging in political conversations. In this era of media, there is much controversy. In order to change this, we must make informed political decisions.
Image sources: Boston University
We all know that political polarization exists in America. However, political polarization exists across the globe. Each country has a different system of government which leads to groups coming together with forming opinions about their government.
A lot of the polarization that is happening across the globe is because of polarizing leaders. For example in Turkey, the country is divided on certain issues. There is no unity between the government and the citizens. Many of the citizens have been questioning elections and how legit they are.
When we think about polarization we tend to focus on American polarization. However, this is different from today because intense political polarization is happening in many countries. We tend to overlook other democracies and governments, however, this is an occurring problem. The intensifying polarization in these countries can lead to disagreement between countries. If this happens, then bigger issues like potential wars can happen.
As we know, Ukraine and Russia are at war right now due to political polarization. The pro-russian separatist became an active group in 2014 during the Russian Revolution. They gained popularity when they pushed for “liberation”. This would then turn into a bigger issue because it would lead to a full invasion on Ukraine by Russia.
Global polarization can be hard to recognize because Americans are not used to other democracies or other forms of government. However, we can not fail to recognize the impacts that it has on our society. Division amongst citizens can lead to a failing democracy and can lead to things like war.
Furthermore, there are other important issues that global polarization affects. The Covid-19 issue affected each country. Since this was a new disease, no country was prepared to handle this issue. This became a divided topic because each country had to come up with their own plan that was effective. The whole world was in disarray and this issue also became a prominent factor in politics. In America, this became the foundation of the 2020 election campaign. Rather than this being a health care issue, it became more about politics.
Rather than uniting on the issue and trying to get a better understanding on how to solve it, the world became more divided. Global polarization will continue to occur. However, with advocacy for change and less emphasis on on political parties, polarization could potentially decrease. 
Image sources: The Washington Post and Carnegie Envelope
As my blog has discussed, political polarization in the United States has been an ongoing problem since political parties came into play. However, in more recent years the United States has become increasingly divided. In this post, I want to discuss ways in which we can still have political parties without having such a strong divide.
- The first way we can reduce the divide is by holding our parties responsible. What does this exactly mean? This means acknowledging when your own members are taking politics to a disrespectful level. For example, if someone from a democratic party continues to insult someone for being republican, it is important that members of that party realize that they need to stand up. Furthermore, if someone from the republican party calls a liberal an insulting term, members of that party need to hold the other person accountable.
- The second way we can reduce the divide is to advocate for non-bias new stations. The influence of polarized media has contributed to the rapid divide amongst people. For example, Fox is definitely a right-wing station. The way they provide information is biased to the right-wing and creates stereotypical ideologies of republicans that increase the divide. CNN on the other hand is a democratic leaning station that presents information with a liberal bias. These types of stations reinforces stereotypes that each party has about the other party. Therefore, it increases the divide rather than presenting new media in a non biased way.
- The third way we can reduce polarization is to stop labeling policies as left/right winged policies. For example, the issue of abortion has two sides that belong to each party. Anti-abortion is a right wing issue and the pro-abortion issue is a left-winged issue. Organizing these issues to specific groups is what causes a divide. It allows people to categorize others into specific groups. When this happens it leads people into only accepting policies that their party proposes. It becomes an issue because will not be open to the idea of discussion or hearing others opinions. This creates an issue in our democracy because people aren’t willing to respect the opinions of others.
When it comes to political polarization there is no way to completely eliminate it. Unfortunately, political polarization has increased so rapidly that it interferes with who we interact with. We can focus on how to reduce it and educating others about the impacts polarization has.
Politics affects us every day. Whether it is at school, work, or watching tv, politics has an impact everywhere. Political polarization has become so rooted in our society. From different tv networks that portray certain political beliefs to movies and tv shows that have liberal or conservative motives. Politics follow us everywhere. We have become so accustomed to it that we do not even notice the effect it has on our decisions and day-to-day interactions.
On-campus, we tend to overlook and not notice the political interactions we have. It tends to be discrete or “normal” that we just do not realize we are taking part in a politically motivated interaction. Furthermore, we have seen political polarization emphasized at Penn State throughout the year. I wanted to go through some of the notable moments that occurred throughout the past semester.
- Milo Yiannopoulos and his “pray the gay away” presentation. Yup! You heard that right. I remember when I saw this sign in the hub and I automatically knew that this was going to strike up controversy. This was a program sponsored by uncensored America. This particular event sparked much controversy because it brought up the issue of free speech versus hate speech. Students felt inclined to become involved which brought up political opinions. More liberal students protested when he came and other organizations came together to create the Love is Louder event which was held at the same time as Milo’s presentation.
- Another time political division was present on campus was when the state government passed the law that state workers needed to become vaccinated. This led to a huge protest on Old Main. During this time period, many students who were conservative came together and protested with a few of the workers. This also led to students voicing their different opinions on vaccination status and masking requirements.
- Another time that politics became a prominent topic was when there was and still is a shortage of CATA bus employees. Employees began to quit their jobs because CATA began to require that their employees get their vaccinations. Students were impacted by this shortage. Today, we are still suffering the consequences of that by not having buses run on Sundays.
Obviously, political polarization and division will happen wherever you go. Since politics is so rooted in our country’s core. Political division is an important component of our rights and free speech. Most of the time political polarization is portrayed to only bring problems. However, sometimes it can bring change and new knowledge to our society.
Image sources: The Daily Collegian and The Washingtonian
As we know, Covid-19 has been a prominent factor in our society since the beginning of 2019. At the start of the pandemic, Donald Trump, a Republican was in office. With so much unknown, the United States tried to come up with a plan to effectively establish a vaccine and healthcare options to aid Americans. However, the pandemic was rapidly spreading across America and more and more people began to get sick.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
This led to people having to not attend work, school, social functions, etc. The government had to come up with a plan to aid citizens that had missed work. With the mass inclination of government involvement to help ease the consequences of the pandemic, covid-19 became more of a political priority than a health priority.
The mass spread of available vaccinations and the decision to become vaccinated now align with people’s political affiliations. For example, those who are not vaccinated are affiliated with the republican party and those who are vaccinated are more associated with the democratic party.
Although there are exceptions to these stereotypes, we can see that there has been an increasing political divide when it comes to the vaccine. Rather than a health choice, like the flu vaccination, the covid-19 has been associated with a political agenda.
Furthermore, a lot of universities and workplaces are requiring the upload of vaccination status. For example, Pennsylvania state requires the submission of vaccination status. If you do not upload this information you can face penalties.
Lastly, we see people not wanting to follow health care protocols because of the political association. At the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of people were coherent and followed masking protocols. People took social distancing more seriously. However, as the years went on, people are feeling the need to align politically with their party. Fewer people are following social distancing protocols and masking requirements because of the political affiliation that is behind it. However, if the vaccination was presented as a healthcare problem more people would follow protocols for the sake of their own health.
Overall, the pandemic itself has become a political priority. It was the foundation of the 2020 election and led to peoples’ votes being heavily focused on covid. We already had such a strong political divide that it only got worse with the covid-19 political agenda.
Hopefully, as the pandemic begins to come to an end we can come together and begin to be united once again.
Photo sources: Pew Research Center
Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or choose to be independent, you have been impacted by political polarization. These categories have become defining factors in our society. They make or break relationships, establish stereotypes, and even are put on dating profiles. Our political beliefs have become so prominent in society, that we have forgotten the importance of respect and agreeing to disagree. Political opinions are opinions. They are not fact, however, many of us, including those in power forget this component.
On this blog post page, I want to stress the importance of the change that is happening to our society. Politics, which once was elected officials to represent the people, has become overly stressed and divided. Politics once united the country, however, it seems that we have taken a step back.
The first topic I want to talk about is political parties and what our society would look like without defining parties. The first thing would be more educated election votes and knowledge of our government system. Defining parties have created a group to belong to. According to research, “There is a strong correlation between belonging to a political party and political opinions.” Rather than looking into a candidate and what their beliefs are, many voters see the political affilation of the candidate and cast their vote. This is inherently biased and against democratic principles. Our democratic system is supposed to be represented by the people. However, with the increased emphasis on political parties, people are making uninformed decisions.
Furthermore, political parties have a certain agenda to abide by. This includes contributions of political campaigns and influencing the elite to “help” campaigning. This agenda has destroyed the honesty of candidates and allows them to make promises that do not occur. For example, Bill Clinton promised universal health care to all Americans. This is a HUGE promise to make. This was a big priority of the democratic party and would have completely changed the current health care system in place. However, once in office, this was never completed. One of Clinton’s main campaign priorities never occurred. It only helped his agenda. He was able to gain the democratic vote but never fulfilled the promise. Political parties can create candidates to lie just for the benefit of the votes.
Lastly, America has increasingly become divided in the past 8 years. According to pew research, “A month before the election, roughly eight in ten registered voters in both camps said their differences with the other side were about core American values.” This statement implies that Americans are questioning the morality of others based on their political beliefs. This is when respect for each other is lost and creates a scary division in the United States.
Image sources: insperity.com and pewresearchcenter.com
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