"In Search of Rational Voters" by Alan Ehrenhalt said a lot in only three pages. However, I think one of the most important things that was said was that " . . . the vast majority of voters go to the polls with only the haziest of notions about what the candidates plan to do." I think this is an extremely valid and true point. As it was documented in the 1960s, I still feel that it is true nowadays. But, this election could have sparked more of an interest because of its historical significance. Ehrenhalt also quoted another author who said that "we peiece together scraps of knowledge gleaned from personal events, historical events, media coverage . . . "
I think all of this relates back to what Postman was saying in his book: that we, as Americans, are receiving only bits and pieces of information that only hurt our decision making process. We also are only unlikely to know about anyone thing in depth. We don't actually have a completel understanding of things. Therefore, we often have misconceptions about important social, political, or economic events. And these misconceptions can lead to skewed voting at the polls.
Postman blames television for this, and he may not be far off in his theory. Ehrenhalt lends credence to this by explaining what author Rick Shenkman found in his new book Just How Stupid Are We? Shenkman found that "the American electorate harbors more misconceptions about public life than it did a generation ago, or at almost any period in American history." But what causes these grave misconceptions by so many? A main cause, Shenkman says, is TV spot ads.
So, I agree, television is most probably melting American minds into a pool of misconstrued and misguided fragments of information. And people are willing to make judements about an event just because they've heard something about it, however slight and fragmented that tid-bit of information may be.
Read. People. Please.
(www.ahajokes.com/cartoon/readdum.jpg)
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