American Government Chapters 6-11

Party identification

A citizen's self- proclaimed preference for one party or the other.

political ideology

A coherent set of beliefs about politics, public policy, and public purpose, which helps give meaning to political events.

Civil disobedience

A form of political participation based on a conscious decision to break a law believed to be unjust and to suffer the consequences.

Protest

A form of political participation designed to achieve policy change through dramatic and unconventional tactics.

7. High-tech politics

A politics in which the behavior of citizens and policymakers and the political agenda itself are increasingly shaped by technology

Rational choice theory

A popular theory in political science to explain the actions of voters as well as politicians. It assumes that individuals act in their own best interest, carefully weighing the costs and benefits of possible alternatives.

Sample

A relatively small proportion of people who are chosen in a survey so as to be representative of the whole.

Talking head

A shot of a person's face talking directly to the camera. Because such shots are visually unstimulating, he major networks rarely show politicians talking for very long. - Boring to viewers

Random-digit dialing

A technique used by pollsters to place telephone calls randomly to both listed and unlisted numbers when conducting a survey.

Melting pot

A term often used to characterize the United States, with its history of immigration and mixing of cultures, ideas, and peoples.

Party machines

A type of political party organization that relies heavily on material inducements, such as patronage, to win votes and to govern.

Political party

According to Anthony Downs, a "team of men (and women) seeking to control the governing apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election."

Political participation

All the activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue. The most common means of political participation in a democracy is voting; the means include protests and civil disobedience.

Census

An "actual enumeration" of the population, which the constitution requires that the govt conducts every 10 years. The census is a valuable tool for understanding demographic changes.

Political culture

An overall set of values widely shared while a society.

Criticism of polling

By altering the wording o a question, pollsters can manipulate the results. Small changes in question wording can sometimes produce significantly different results.

Open primaries

Elections to select party nominee in which voters can decide on Election Day whether they want to participate in the Dem or Repub contests. 267

Closed primaries

Elections to select party nominees in which only people who have registered in advance with the party can vote for that party's candidates, thus encouraging greater party loyalty.

Media events

Events that are purposely staged for the media and that are significant just because the media is there. - Slickly produced Tv commercials are another important tool in high- tech politics. *** 60% of campaign spending is on commercial, 2/3 of commercials are negative, this is a concern for political scientists who think that this poisoning the American political process

Chains

Groups of newspapers published by media conglomerates and today accounting for over fourth-fifths of the nation's daily newspaper circulation.

Unconventional participation

Includes activities that are often dramatic, such as protesting, civil disobedience, and even violence.

Conventional participation

Includes many widely accepted modes of influencing government- voting, trying to persuade others.

Trial balloons

Intentional news leaks for the purpose of assessing the political reaction.

Narrowcasting

Media programming on cable TV or the internet that is focused on a particular interest and aimed at a particular interest an aimed at a particular audience,in contrast to broadcasting.

Print media

Newspapers and magazine, as compared with electronic media.

Patronage

One of the key inducements used by party machines. A patronage job, promotion, or contract is one that is given for political reasons rather than for merit or competence alone.

Policy entrepreneurs

People who invest their political "capital" in an issue. According to John could be in or out the govt in elected or appointed positions, in interest groups or research organizations.

Exit poll

Public opinion surveys used by major media pollsters to predict electoral winners.

Sound bites

Short video clips of approximately 10 seconds. Typically they are all that is shown from a politician's speech on the nightly television news.

Beats

Specific locations from which news frequently emanates, such as congress or the hitter house. Most top reporters work a particular beat, thereby becoming specialists in what goes on at the location.

Electronic media

Television, radio, and the internet, as compared with print media.

Mass media

Television, radio, newspapers, magazines, the internet, and other means of popular communication.

Party competition

The battle of the parties for control of public offices. Ups and downs of the two major parties are one of the most important elements in American politics.

Linkage instituions

The channels through which people's concerns become political issues on the governments policy agenda. In the US, linkage institutions include elections, political parties, interest groups, and he media.

Policy agenda

The issues that attract the serious attention of public officials and other people actively involved in politics at the time.

Random sampling

The key technique employed by survey researchers, which operates on the principle that everyone should have an equal probability of being elected of rat example.

Sampling error

The level of confidence in the findings of a public opinion poll. The more oppose interviewed, the more confident one can be of the results.

Reapportionment

The process of reallocating seats in the House of Representatives every 10 years on the basis of the results of the census. Occurs once a decade, after each census, when the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are reallocated to reflect each states proportion of the population. *** Immigration has increased seats for sunbelt which is controversial (Arizona, California and Florida)

Political socialization

The process through which individuals in a society acquire political attitudes, views, and knowledge, based on inputs from family, schools, the media, and others. As people become more socialized with age, their political orientations grow firmer. *** Much more subtle process in the United States - Majority of political knowledge is acquired informally - Family is a central role in s socialization because of its monopoly on two crucial resources in early years: time and emotional commitment. - television displaces parents as the chief source of information as children get older. -Govts use schools to promote national loyalty and support for their basic values

Gender gap

The regular pattern in which women are more likely to support Democratic candidates, in part because they tend to be less conservative than men and more likely to support spending on social services and to oppose higher levels of military spending. - The gender gap is relatively new predictor of ideological positions, back to 1980 when Reagan was elected - Role of religion in influencing political ideology has also changed greatly in recent years

Demography

The science of population changes.

Minority majority

The situation, likely beginning in the mid- twenty- first century, in which the non-hispanic white will represent a minority of the US population and minority groups together will represent a majority.

Investigative journalism

The use of in-depth reporting to unearth scandals, scams, and schemes, at times putting reporters in adversarial relationships with political leaders.

Party image

The voter's perception of what the Republicans or Democrats stand for such as conservatism or liberalism.

Ticket splitting

Voting with one party for one office and with another party for other offices. It has become the norm in American voting behavior.

Press conferences

meetings of public officials with reporters.

6. Public opinion

the distribution of the population's beliefs about politics and policy issues.

Selective exposure

the process through which people consciously choose to get the news from information sources that have viewpoints compatible with their own.