Sounds more like the principle of cognitive dissonance to me. Where you choose a "brand" or whatever and because you chose it, you view your choice as not only good but best... and you selectively boost your perception of the positives of your choice, while amplifying the negatives of the alternate choice. So that choice alters perception.
It works to the degree that your reality testing can stretch. For example many who voted for bill clinton finally tipped into being very annoyed at him (and even the Dems) during the Monica debacle.
That may be at the root of what we see happening in this primary. Well, one of the things at the root.
Amazing how you can find similarities across topics.
TheraP, I've only studied psychology and alternative behavioural therapies as a hobby, but I'd have to agree with the cognitive dissonance. Which, in my opinion, sounds a lot better than "cult", "brainwashed", or "drinking the Kool Aid."
Can we give Obama supporters Prozac instead of bumper stickers?
I admit to getting wrapped up in my own version. For me, I totally see the cognitive dissonance of Obama supporters.
This isn't to say I don't see it in Clinton supporters, too. It's just that sexism hits closer to home for me than racism (being a heterosexual, white, 30-something male, I'm not allowed to have identity politics). The sexism in this campaign against Ms Clinton has been abhorrent, mostly coming from the GOP and Obama's YouTube fans. So, I tend to cut her supporters a little more slack in their dissonance.
To get back to what I was saying. So, I also have my own form of cognitive dissonance, but it doesn't have anything to do with either candidate. It has to do with Obama supporters, and how that affects my view of media bias. Because they're more vocal, because Obama's rallies are huge events (see the Portland video that I posted, for example), it seems like all I see are Obama supporters.
And so, it seems, all I see on the news, or political sites, are pro-Obama / anti-Clinton stories. Just look at Election Central. Or Josh's main blog. Not a single pro-Clinton piece. Or, if it's a neutral Clinton piece, they often throw in a pro-Obama snippet. The other thing is the editorial snark that accompanies Clinton-based posts, and not Obama-based posts.
I know there will be people here, who would disagree in any bias. But, I ask you to just read the stories, calculate them based on the pro/anti/neutral aspect of the story, and look at to whom the snark is directed.
If I still believe that TPM and other media sites are pushing slanted stories, doesn't that just reaffirm my own cognitive dissonance?
It would be if I thought those sites were slanted for a particular
endorsement of a candidate. I think this is where I see most of my own dissonance, and maybe some of the "media bias" claims. What I keep forgetting is that there's a difference between
bias and
agenda. Before we can claim bias, we have to know the agenda of the "biased" party.
What is Josh's agenda? What is TPM Media's agenda? What is the agenda of media, in general?
I don't have exclusive access to the inner workings of Josh's or Greg's minds. But, I do know that Josh has posted a few times on reporting the horse race. Here's
the link to his post in February, and a little snippet of what Josh said:
To put it simply, it doesn't surprise me that people think we're dedicating a lot of time to the campaign horse race because that's what we're trying to do. Now there are certainly lame and not so lame ways to cover it. You can get more or less distracted by the irrelevancies kicked up by the debate, you can ignore whether what one side's saying is true or untrue and treat it like a he said/she said rather than digging down to provide some refereeing of the bamboozlement. And though I like to think we do pretty good on that score certainly we have and will fall short at times.
But my basic take on this is that at this point in the campaign the vast majority of our readers knows the basic policy differences between the candidates. Most of you are people who are into politics and are looking for really good coverage of the campaign. And that's what we're trying to provide. And the campaign is a race between one or more candidates. So, speaking for myself, I'm into polls. I want to know what the different campaigns strategies are, what issues voters are interested in and responding to, who's putting together good field organizations on the ground, etc. And I think readers are too.
At least for TPM, it appears the focus is on the horse race, and not an endorsement of a particular candidate. Which means the reasons for posting attacks and praises for a candidate isn't because of interest of the candidate, but because it keeps the horse race going. If the nomination was wrapped up - which many Obama supporters claim - then there would be no real reason to tune in to the talking heads. Horror of horrors, ad revenue could go down!
This, at least, is what we need to remember. Media isn't necessarily interested in truth, or reporting the facts. It's interested in ratings and the bottom line. So, in my opinion, the media isn't biased "against Clinton". Rather, it's biased against the "inevitable front-runner" that threatens Media's agenda of perpetuating the horse race.
I imagine we'll see more negative (or reversals) stories about Obama in the near future.
