HOW FOX NEWS & THE REPUBLICAN “BRAIN” REALLY WORKS

 

Using proper research techniques, author Chris Mooney makes it clear why many Republicans continue to shun reality.

 

If you want to fully understand how a conservative Republican’s brain really works, I highly suggest that you check out author Chris Mooney’s book titled: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality.

To summarize the basic thesis of this book, it is that Republicans are authoritarian individuals that have a very strong need for personal affirmation.  In addition, they need to escape any factual challenges to their basic beliefs.  This is why they need an accessible outlet like Fox News, where they can find that affirmation as they are also allowed to escape reality.

The Financial Times, one of the most respected publications for offering the truth about what’s going on in our world today had the following review of Mr. Mooney’s 300+ page publication: "Drawing on a growing body of empirical research, he [Mooney] provides an intelligent, nuanced and persuasive account of how conservatives and liberals tend to differ at the level of psychology and personality" (Financial Times, April 2012)

The way the study was developed was by Mooney’s exploration of seven highly extensive, independent, public opinion surveys   The surveys asked American citizens about their beliefs on certain issues and about their TV media habits. 

It became obvious that after collecting many inputs, a very large percentage of those in the surveys were found to be misinformed about many issues.  But the one issue that became glaringly clear was that those who were avid Fox viewers were the ones most likely to be misinformed.  It also became evident that these same individual’s views of reality were skewed in a very strict right-wing direction, as is Fox News in general.  In some cases, the studies showed that by watching more Fox programming made whatever the misinformation problem was, even worse.

In other words, the study concluded that Fox viewers are dealing with a serious double-edged problem.  They are both misinformed in terms of what they learn, and they have been misinformed by Fox, as their “source” of all the news information they receive.

The issues that were covered in the 2012 surveys that were used, and that were discussed in the book included the following subjects: the War in Iraq, Global Warming Science, Health Care, possibility of a 9/11 Ground-Zero Mosque, and the 2010 Elections.

One of the classic results that surfaced in general about the Republican brain was that those seeking to have their core beliefs reinforced, normally only looked to those sources that would reinforce those beliefs. This is what the author referred to as the Republican’s, “selective exposure”, and it was the clearest way to look at how these people created their own realities.  It became evident that these individuals were twice as likely to consume agreeable conservative ideological information, other than to consider accepting any counter-conservative inputs.

Therefore, they were twice as likely to only accept those ideas that they agreed with, than to consider an alternative, even if the alternative turned out to be more true than what they had wanted to believe.

This situation brought about a clear understanding of the pre-disposition of closed-mindedness of most of the conservative, right-wing Republican Fox viewers. 

It became clear that political conservatives tended to have a higher need for closure on their core beliefs.  It also became obvious that authoritarian conservatives will maintain their beliefs against any and all challenges.  They do this by consciously limiting the exposure of their views, and by surrounding themselves with supporting sources of information, such as are available from the Fox network.  And Fox will always confirm that Republican conservative ideas are the correct ones.

It became very evident in the research that Fox takes full advantage of this conservative mindset by programing their political stories to feed into this concept.

Therefore, the so called, “science” of Fox News clearly showed that its viewers were more misinformed than the viewers of other cable TV stations.  This approach is intended on purpose by Fox for their obvious conservative ideological focus.

This so called “Fox effect” occurs because the network offers only the kind of falsehoods that the conservatives will readily accept. But it was a reality that most of the conservatives interviewed were overwhelmingly inclined to only choose Fox for watching news in the first place.

When one of the studies took the approach of comparing the differences between conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats, the results were that Democrats and liberals were definitely less inclined to choose Fox than any other information sources.  The liberal individuals would spread their viewing across other outlets when it came to seeking real news. But the Republicans and conservatives overwhelmingly continued to only choose Fox for their hard news, and they tended to ignore all other sources. This opinion study’s author even wrote, “The probability of any of the Republicans selecting a CNN or NPR report was only around 10%.”

So, the overall conclusion is that the root of the current Republican political dysfunction, and the penchant for their “selective exposure” is deeply rooted in their brain’s psychology.  Those that displayed the strongest levels of closed-mindedness and authoritarianism, this attitude was much stronger in the conservatives than in the liberals and progressives.

It also became evident that it took the emergence of a cable network like Fox before those closed-minded tendencies could be fully utilized for the current polarization of America.

But this "polarization" is not just for the nation’s politics.  For many Republicans, it’s apparently their way to shun reality itself.

Copyright G.Ater  2014