Monthly Archives: January 2006

overcoming polarization?

Dan Yankelovich (chairman and co-founder of Public Agenda) has published a new book on polarization, which is excerpted online. The excerpt argues that Americans aren’t all that deeply divided between liberals and conservatives. According to Yankelovich’s polls, we Americans share eleven “core values that blend traditional and progressive attitudes into a new social morality.” This social morality is “centrist”; “both liberals and conservatives have something positive to contribute.”

However, look at the list:

  • Patriotism
  • Self-confidence
  • Individualism
  • Belief in hard work and productivity
  • Religious beliefs
  • Child-centeredness
  • Community and charity
  • Pragmatism and compromise
  • Acceptance of diversity
  • Cooperation with other countries
  • Hunger for common ground
  • To me, the first seven items look basically conservative. I don’t see “equity,” “peace,” “freedom from want,” “saving nature,” “civil liberties,” or “fairness” on the list. The American majority prefers patriotism, individualism, faith, and family. However, as the last four items show, they’d rather not fight about such matters. They dislike sharp disagreement (that’s well documented in other studies), preferring compromise, acceptance, and cooperation. Thus, while their own views are conservative, they’re hoping that everyone will agree to some practical, “common-sense” ideas.

    I wish the list of core values were somewhat different, although I suspect it’s an accurate picture of public opinion. “Acceptance of diversity” and “child-centeredness” are the most promising items for progressives. As we know, Americans support spending for education and some diversity in corporate employment and the media. However, those beliefs are perfectly consistent with mainstream modern conservatism.

    Despite the majority’s hope for “common ground,” the conservative 25-30% of the population actually disagrees pretty sharply with the liberal 17-20%. The middle holds the balance. They are the ones who most consistently endorse Yankelovich’s eleven “core values.” While they may identify themselves as moderates, I would call them conservatives without an angry edge.

    [Note: This is my graph, not Yankelovich’s.]

    opportunity for youth work in New Orleans

    Common Cents is offering grants up to $20,000 for projects that will contribute to an inclusive and just recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Preference will be given to service or advocacy projects that either involve young people meaningfully in the recovery, or that address the specific needs of children and youth. … All winners will …

  • Receive up to $20,000 in cash awards
  • Showcase their project at a student conference in New York City in May 2006
  • “Preference will be given for projects that …

  • Increase youth decision-making in the recovery and rebuilding
  • Build relationships between people within and outside the region
  • Strengthen infrastructure for sustainable services for young people
  • Contribute to our understanding of youth as a resource for recovery
  • … DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1″

    journalists still matter

    I’ve come from Ohio to New York City for a meeting on “Media and Communications at the Crossroads: The Role of Scholarship for Media Justice and Reform.” At the meeting, my friend Lew Friedland just argued that daily news journalism is still essential to the “media ecology.” I’d put the argument as follows:

    It’s true that people get news, ideas, and values from their family and friends and from multiple electronic sources, including the web portals of Yahoo and other Internet-service providers (which are regular news sources for 15% of young people); comedy TV (a regular source for 21% of youth); and talk radio (16%). (See this Pew Research Center poll.) However, Yahoo’s headlines simply come from wire services–hence, from reporters. Comedy writers get most of their material from daily newspapers. Friedland estimates that 90% of the news stories on local TV come from a local newspaper. Debates in the blogosphere are very often triggered by reported news. Fictional programs like “Law and Order” are inspired by print journalism. Therefore, influential conversations in the kitchen, the office water-cooler, and church often derive ultimately from a newspaper.

    If this is right, then we cannot consider citizen media and other new means of communication and discussion in isolation. They are dependent on the state of conventional, professional journalism–which isn’t good. Newspapers are highly profitable but are cutting their staff and budgets for reporting. Two thirds of national journalists believe that bottom-line pressure is hurting news coverage–causing the press to avoid complex issues, to be sloppy, and to be timid. (Source.) Bloggers can complain about newspaper journalists from various angles; they can’t replace them.

    so which is it?

    1. From Matthew A. Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg, Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined its Citizens and Privatized its Public (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), p. 236:

    Contemporary elites have found that they need not engage in the arduous task of building a popular constituency. Public interest groups and environmental groups have large mailing lists but few active members; civil rights groups field more attorneys than protestors; and national political parties activitate a familiar few rather than risk mobilizing anonynmous millions.

    2. From Thomas L. Friedman, “It’s a Flat World, After All,” The New York Times, April 3, 2005:

    No, not everyone has access yet to this platform,* but it is open now to more people in more places on more days than anything like it in history. Wherever you look today–whether it is the world of journalism, with bloggers bringing down Dan Rather; the world of software, with the Linux code writers working in online forums for free to challenge Microsoft; or the world of business, where Indian and Chinese innovators are competing against and working with some of of the most advanced Western multinationals–hierarchies are being flattened and value is being created less and less within vertical silos and more and more through horizontal collaboration within companies, between companies and among individuals.

    *The referent here is not precisely clear, but “this platform” roughly means: the Internet and the global information marketplace.

    another week, another Miami

    Today I’ll travel to Miami University in Oxford, OH, having been in that other Miami not more than 10 days ago. While I was in the Big Miami, during a break, I managed to ride a city bus over to South Beach. Uncomfortably warm in my dark suit and business shoes, I walked on the sand with the art deco pastel buildings on one side and the hazy Atlantic on the other. I drank a cappuccino in a beachfront restaurant where all of the staff spoke Italian and the young guy at the next table quickly downed three bloody marys. It was 10 am.

    In contrast, the last time I visited Miami of Ohio, the weather was freezing–close to or below zero fahrenheit and with a high, dry wind. However, Miami of Ohio is a picture-perfect Midwestern community with white picket fences, Christmas lights, and kids in varsity jackets. If I had to choose, I’d pick the Miami of the Midwest (the original one, as the residents will eagerly tell you).