Political Disagreement: The Survival of Diverse Opinions Within Communication Networks

ISBN-13: 9780521542234 / Angielski / Miękka / 2004 / 274 str.

Robert Huckfeldt; Paul E. Johnson; John Sprague

Opis

Without the experience of disagreement, political communication among citizens loses value and meaning. At the same time, political disagreement and diversity do not always or inevitably survive. This book, accordingly, considers the compelling issue of the circumstances that sustain political diversity, even in politically high stimulus environments where individuals are attentive to politics and the frequency of communication among citizens is correspondingly high.

Recenzje

'A wonderful example of what social science can be … a well-articulated theory of how and why one's informal, face-to-face social networks are more diverse than social conformity and dissonance studies suggest. It then goes on to explain how this diversity helps citizens form and maintain their political beliefs and attitudes, and yes, even be persuaded. In a series of strong empirical tests, Huckfeldt demonstrates that from this diversity of opinion, citizens become capable of thinking more deeply about issues and - this a key point - develop tolerance for different points of view. Rarely do we see a better blend of theory informed empirical tests of important substantive and normative questions central to the conditions underlying a democratic citizenry.' Milton Lodge, Stony Brook University

Spis treści

1. Communication, influence, and the capacity of citizens to disagree; 2. New information, old information, and persistent disagreement; 3. Dyads, networks, and autoregressive influence; 4. Disagreement, heterogeneity, and the effectiveness of political communication; 5. Disagreement, heterogeneity, and persuasion: how does disagreement survive?; 6. Agent-based explanations, patterns of communication, and the inevitability of homogeneity; 7. Agent-based explanations, autoregressive influence, and the survival of disagreement; 8. Heterogeneous networks and citizen capacity: disagreement ambivalence, and engagement; 9. Summary, implications, and conclusion.