Fernandes 1
Josh Fernandes
E226_Assignment 6
Jaf141
30/10/2015
Can the news you watch dictate the political party you follow and make you think about economics differently?
In this survey we can measure many things the public and us students say about economics and the country as a whole. Most people think about the country and how its governed by thinking about it being split into two different parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. Republicans think a certain way in terms of economic issues and Democrats think another way, and between these two parties most people make up their mind on issues based on the ideology of the party they follow. People tend to get these ideas from the news where candidates and representatives voice their opinions on issues. Depending on what news channel you watch you can see the world differently from someone who watches a different news channel. For example, if you watch fox news you more than likely view the world more conservatively than someone who watches like CNN or gets their news from the NY times. In some instances, though people can change their views or start to view the world in a certain way, if they haven’t already decided what to believe, based on what channel they watch the news on. Let us say someone who is less aware about political issues and/or economic issues started to watch any given news channel. If you start to watch a certain news channel then eventually, without a hard prior knowledge of the topics being discussed, you will start to follow the ideas that the specific news outlet is putting out. The news you watch can influence your views on the world and its economic issues.
When you watch the news you normally watch for like stories about your little town or your area. When you watch ABC or MSNBC or FNC or CNN you are watching for the country as a whole. You watch those four news channels to see how the government is doing that day, or if there is any big case going on you want to see the outcome of. And you watch to find out how the economy of the country is doing, like are we in a recession or on a splurge upward. We want to know how relations are with the middle east so we can know how oil prices are going to fluctuate that week. Many things can be gained from the news, but most of this knowledge comes with the ideology of the news channel you watch. News channels put their ideas on others by projecting stories in the way they want you to see them. Most news channels will project the news about the economy the same way they project news in general. They give you news about the economy in their own views. This gives you a lack of knowledge of overall economy health. If you watch fox they might give you the statistic that something is worse off because of Obama and now we are all paying the price. But other channels might say that the U rate is now 5.1% so the economy is coming back and soon will be back to full health. The table underneath shows how news channels and leaning towards parties correlate. As you can see most people who watch fox are more likely to answer the leaning question republican. Other places like CNN have a very heavy audience and most people that watch tend to be in the middle, it’s a very even spread.
This survey summed up a great bit about people in 30 questions. We learned what people rely on for news and how they consider themselves leaning left or right on economic issues. To me the way people think about economics depends completely on two things, what they actually know about the subject and what they hear from the news. The news can change your views on lots of things in the world, how Americans view the Iraq war vs how Europeans view it for example, but especially your views on money and economic issues around the world.