It’s Time To Choose Gray II:

    Throughout last decades everything seems to have became black and white. Our sense of judgment has not been immune from such sin either. In the previous section I implored my readers to get more involved with policy proposals and demand more in-depth explanation from their elected representatives by sending the right signals indicating that they would not be satisfied with simple black and white sugar coded messages presented by advocators of policies. Thus, one may ask what steps should be followed in order to become more politically engaged and involved? I did some research throughout the years of my studies in undergrad and grad school on this regard. In this post I will strive to point some tactics that I have found the most useful.

Look throughout the Spectrum of Bias in Order to Avoid Bias:

    If most media and news outlets are politically biased or some tend to lean toward a specific political position, the best way to assess policy has become to gather information across the spectrum of political bias. In other words, we should check out at least couple of media outlets that have different visions regarding a particular position just to make sure that we have gathered as much facts as possible. It is very common and also empirically proven that conservative or liberal citizens have different sources of newsgathering and tend to stay with them throughout their lives. Having our opinions approved by like-minded news sources seems convenient and natural, but after a while it will lead to these news agencies to become conveniently dominant over our judgments. As well, how can one become more critically involved if that person does not hear the opposing arguments? Few days ago I came across a very interesting article posted on datascience.berkeley.edu presenting us with a spectrum putting different news outlets on a political biased spectrum. As you might have guessed the right side tends to represent more conservatively biased and the left is more liberal outlets. Picking couple of these channels as our source of news gathering on certain issue could assist us a lot with becoming more familiar with the pros and cons of each side of an argument regarding public policy.

Go Beyond Visual Outlets to the Written:

    We should utilize this tactics for two reasons. First, as most newspaper and written tabloid sells-associates tell us, “ the written news are more detailed and investigate issues more in-dept.…” This means one could gather more information that falls on the gray area through written newspapers or online credible sources, while the written news and professional credible blogs tend to provide us with more in-depth arguments between the two sides of every debate. The second reason is that one can search the relevant issues much easier throughout the written press thanks to technology and search engines online. While we could easily search through thousands of sites online, we could easily find the relevant topics that concern our lives by resorting to online searches. We could even bypass the “gate kept” selected news agendas chosen by the top news agencies and decide what matters most concerning our communities and cultures setting up our own agenda by utilizing this tactic.

Ask for Scholarly Opinions Online:

     As I mentioned, citizens could access more in-debt arguments through written news outlets online. Parallel to the last technic, thanks to the new Internet technologies, we could easily ask for scholarly opinion and find about pros and cons of every policy or policy proposal online. In addition to this, for those of us who are more engaged, there are scholarly reviewed websites that provide us with credible arguments regarding pros and cons of certain legislation, policy proposal or bill in congress or senate. This tactic could assist us to make decisions that are based on empirically done research and educated opinions and tend to lead us to make more efficient decisions when asked to directly or indirectly vote toward an issue.

For International News Go Beyond National Resources:

    If one thing most news agencies inside any country would agree upon the most is the field of international issues. Coverage and analysis are very much alike when one goes through the domestic media resources for international information, especially here in the U.S. An “engaged” citizen might be able to gather more information on different issues by going beyond medial outlets available domestically, but international news demand more time and energy on behalf of the citizens. For example if CNN, Fox News, CNBC might be a good combination of news review for internal matters here in the U.S, one should resort to other international outlets such as Aljazeera, RT News, Press TV and other international news channels for the purpose of gathering every side of an global debate. This does not mean that these other resources have a better or a more fair coverage and analysis of issues. My point is for citizens to get the right amount of information before they use their judgment and sending signals to their representatives.

In Sum:

   Overall the goal for this post was to provide my readers with tactics to get familiar with the gray area of each policy, bill, legislation and policy proposal as much as possible. As much as we all are pressed on time and tend to enjoy our parade marching with the like minded, it is possible and likely that we might be wrong on a hand full of issues. It also might be true for us to be misled by Public Relations and Marketing technicians working for most news outlets.  Overall becoming interested in gray area is a good “political cultural” trait that should be improved in any democratic or representative country.

I hope you enjoyed my positive citizens’ message of this period!

Best,

Admin

Source for the spectrum:

http://datascience.berkeley.edu/data-media-map-bitly/

There will be a new post this Friday!!

Folks, I will post a new blog this Friday. After that, every two weeks,  I will blog a new post on Fridays.

Best, 

Admin

It is Time to Choose Gray!

    Unlike the over simplified version of persuasive editorials that we face in blogs, newspapers and speeches of interest group advocates, most political issues concerning public policy are not black and white.  How one labels another person socialist, racist, conservative, extremist or communist? Most of the times these labels are created by the opposition for oversimplification and fast delivery of a message. Sadly, often society in a way that they overshadow the facts and true nature of an argument adopts these labels. As I mentioned in the previous post, a “political culture” that is conducive toward endurance of a functioning democracy includes certain important traits.

      In my opinion, one of these important traits is sending the right signals to our elected officials asserting the point: us as citizens are more sophisticated and matured than what PR advisors and consulting firms have noted in their reports. This involves in reading and investigating the legislative proposals in a more coherent and deep manner while keeping in mined that most issues don’t fall on the extremes of a horizontal line. Political Issues are not specifically about extremes; should we regulate or should we not regulate a certain sector, should we assist the poor or should we not, should we provide the citizens with universal health care or should we leave that to the free market economy? To the mind of a modern and engaged citizen these questions are rather obsolete and old news. The truth is that there are rarely any forms of political systems that lack regulations. There are rarely any political systems that lack needy-assistance programs and hardly any governmental entities that don’t provide their citizens with some sort of universal health care.

    Thus, the questions that our policy makers face everyday are not as oversimplified as most advocacy groups strive to portray. Modern democracies with such intricate socio-economical structures deal with much more sophisticated questions. Rather than should or shouldn’t, our policy makers usually deal with the extent, jurisdictions, time and means of governmental involvement in social and economical programs. In other words, they deal with the gray area not the extremes! Since there are not any form of government entities without regulations, it is important for the citizens to become more deeply involved studying the policies and programs that strive to regulate or intervene in any sector concerning our lives. In this regard, instead of adapting to shallow approaches that involves in taking an extreme side of any debates, we should get to the knots and bolts of proposed policies better studying their implementation outcomes and their sole purpose of emergence. 
    Of course some policy plans might be advertised with fancy titles claiming to introduce humanitarian policies, while some might be demonized and portrayed in the most negative way. But, the truth is that most demonized policies are not as bad as they sound and many of the fancy titled ones are too good to be true, hence their content will eminently fall on the gray area. Remember, the science of marketing and advertising has became much more developed and sophisticated throughout the last half century, and the political adds are designed to tickle with our extremist urges to make decisions on policies in a rather simplified and shallow manner. In the next post I will suggest how one could more efficiently approach governmental policies in a way to provide the best policy outcome.

Cheers,
Admin