OSU Public Opinion Campaigns Elections & Media Questions Discussion & Response 1. Discussion Post & Responses Please choose one of the following questions

OSU Public Opinion Campaigns Elections & Media Questions Discussion & Response 1. Discussion Post & Responses

Please choose one of the following questions and react to it briefly. You need to reply to 2 other student’s post. I will give you my peers’ posts later. (I need the discussion question answer in 24 hours, you can give me the response part later.)

When you submit answer, please begin by pasting the question you are responding to in the text field. Then write your answer below.

To what extent do you think media bias is a problem in the way political events are covered in the news? Do you think the press should become more explicitly partisan? Why or why not?
President Trump has frequently derided unfavorable coverage of his administration as “fake news” and has stated that the mainstream media are “the enemy of the American people.” Why has the President taken this unprecedented approach to the media? What is his objective? What impact do you think this will have on the freedom of the press in our democracy?
Twitter recently fact checked several of President Trump’s tweets, leading the President to threaten measures to limit protections for social media companies. Facebook has largely declined to fact check the President, and has even relaxed some of its existing standards to accommodate misleading political speech. What role should social media companies play in censoring/verifying speech on their platforms? What should these look like? What are the costs of allowing any speech to be published? What are the costs of heavily regulating speech?

Before You begin:

Posts and responses should be thorough and thoughtful. Just posting an “I agree” or “Good ideas” will not be considered adequate. Support statements with examples, experiences, or references. Be brief — keep each post and response to one or two short paragraphs. Keep in mind that fellow learners will be reading and responding to you, too.
Posts should be within a range of 75-150 words.
Make certain that all posts and responses address one of the the questions, problems, or situations as presented for discussion. This does not mean you should not extend the topic, but do not stray from the topic.
Discussions occur when there is dialogue; therefore, you need to build upon the posts and responses of other learners to create discussion threads. Make sure to revisit the discussion forum and respond (if necessary) to what other learners have posted to your initial responses.
When relevant, add to the discussion by including prior knowledge, work experiences, references, web sites, resources, etc. (giving credit when appropriate).
Contributions to the discussions (posts and responses) should be complete and free of grammatical or structural errors.

2. Question set: Public Opinion, Campaigns & Elections, and the Media

Please respond to each of the four short response questions posted below. Your answers should be short, focused, and complete, ranging from one to three paragraphs. Please make sure to answer each specific part of every question. Successful answers will provide details and context that support your arguments and explain your position to the readers. You may also want to provide real world examples taken from the readings, lectures, group discussions, or your own independent thinking. These illustrations can be from the course materials or your own ideas. Providing this context and being able to apply the material to YOUR OWN understanding of politics really shows us that you have mastered the material.

Where does public opinion come from? Discuss its cognitive foundations and how socialization produces these. Why might it be collectively rational? Why not?
Describe important differences between focus groups, nonscientific polling, and scientific polling, including their benefits and drawbacks. Which is best for accurately measuring public opinion? Why? How might this type still fail?
What types of factors explain an individual voter’s probability of turning out to vote? What could be done to increase voter turnout?
What factors influence how the media covers political issues? How do these standards influence the way the public thinks about policy problems, political events, and electoral contests? What could the media do to improve how Americans think about such important political problems?

You should read the following course reading materials before you begin:

Please be sure to read the entire chapter. The link takes you to the introduction.

American Government, Chapter 6: The Politics of Public Opinion (Links to an external site.)
American Government, Chapter 7: Voting and Elections
American Government, Chapter 8: The Media (Links to an external site.)
Prior, Markus. 2007. “The Real Media Divide (Links to an external site.).” The Washington Post.
Grossman, Matt. 2018. “The media isn’t making people more divided (Links to an external site.).” Medium