The social psychological motivations underpinning political discussion present dire challenges for sustaining meaningful political conversations across lines of difference. This book explores how Americans navigate discussing politics in their daily lives with particular attention to the decision-making process for when and how to broach politics.
"Accurate information about politics is at the heart of democratic functioning. For decades, those concerned with the information environment have understandably focused on mass media, but many Americans do not learn about politics from direct engagement with the news. Indeed, about one-third of Americans learn about politics from socially transmitted information they acquire from conversations with others and social media. How does socially transmitted information differ from information communicated by mass media? And what are the consequences for political behavior? Drawing on evidence from experiments, surveys, and Twitter, Taylor Carlson finds that, as information flows from the media to person to person, it becomes sparse, more biased, less accurate, and more mobilizing. The result is what Carlson calls distorted democracy. Although socially transmitted information does not necessarily render democracy dysfunctional, it does contribute to a public that is at once underinformed, polarized, and engaged"--
Over five decades of research has shown that social networks significantly influence our political behavior. Engaging in political conversations within these networks fosters connections that enhance the likelihood of political activity. However, most studies focus on individuals rather than the effects of networks. Additionally, existing research predominantly centers on White Americans. Given that neighborhood, cultural, friend, and family networks often segregate along ethnic and racial lines, the authors argue that political networks likely do the same. This work utilizes quantitative and qualitative analyses of 4,000 individuals from White American, African American, Latino, and Asian American backgrounds to investigate inter and intra-ethnoracial differences in social network composition, size, partisanship, policy attitudes, and homophily in political and civic engagement. The book makes three significant contributions: it offers a detailed comparative analysis of political networks across and within ethnoracial groups, demonstrates how historical differences in partisanship, policy attitudes, and engagement manifest in social networks, and reveals the impact of these networks on individuals' political and civic involvement.