Conservatives More Open to Different Opinions
Hot Air published the results of a research conducted recently about the internet-reading habits of both conservatives and liberals. The findings are not exactly surprising to me, but I’m pretty sure that my liberal friends will be outraged nonetheless:
People with stronger party affiliation, conservative political views, and greater interest in politics proved more likely to click on articles with opposing views, according to the Ohio State study.
“It appears that people with these characteristics are more confident in their views and so they’re more inclined to at least take a quick look at the counterarguments,” Knobloch-Westerwick noted…
The Brigham Young University survey found that journalists also tended to read liberal blogs – perhaps a reflection of journalists’ political beliefs, although even conservatives said liberal blogs were often better-written, Davis pointed out.
Among the political blog readers, a similar trend emerged in which “liberals read almost exclusively liberal blogs, but conservatives tend to read both,” Davis said.
Davis offered another possible explanation for this trend among blog readers. Conservative views dominate talk radio, and so conservatives may feel more satisfied by that outlet and are willing to check out opposing views on blogs.
Funnily enough, this is exactly what I complained about (to Jason) a couple of days ago. Bloggers, so yours truly as well, often send out links to their posts to other bloggers. This is also known as a ‘link beg.’ When I send conservative bloggers a post they disagree with, they thank me for sending it, say they disagree but found it interesting to read nonetheless, and often do what I asked (link).
When liberal bloggers, on the other hand, see a post they disagree with, they go insane. They immediately request you “take me off the email list,” and they start insulting you, the author of the post (if it’s someone else), and your entire blog. The conclusion: they can’t handle disagreement.
The main difference between conservatives and liberals, then, is that the former believe disagreements are not personal, whereas the latter consider everyone they disagree with “the enemy.”
“more confident in their views”
“even conservatives said liberal blogs were often better-written”
Two probable inferences are possible from the bold statements – liberals tend to stick to their field because they are less tolerant of opposing views, *or* they simply have less reason to go over to the other field because those blogs are of lower quality. I think the former explanation is the case (for various reasons) but from what you’ve highlighted it’s not an unambiguous situation.
The first point you made was a pretty valid and thought out one. The second one must be a joke, the basis that you even wrote it is pretty darn amusing. The far right – especially the Evangelical right certainly does not take to deviations too kindly, the left has a much broader range that will not allow deviations.
Admittedly, I have read some lefty blogs less since joining here. Though I do still ready lefty blog posts.