Hearing the Other Side

In Hearing the Other Side, Diana C. Mutz provides a compelling theoretical and empirical examination of the complicated relationship between deliberation and democracy. Questioning the normative prescription that a good citizen, by definition, engages in deliberation with those who have different opinions as part of the political process, Mutz asks if and how Americans actually engage with other Americans who might disagree with them. Despite the attractiveness of a normative argument for interaction between likes and unlikes, Mutz shows that in practice there are numerous factors that work against interaction, including geographic segregation and social practice. Not only do people tend to live amongst those with whom they agree, social norms work against discussing politics in public let alone airing a minority opinion. Mutz describes benefits associated with talking with people with different opinions: such activity increases one's knowledge of other opinions and is associated with greater tolerance. Additionally, and surprisingly, Mutz finds that the factors that encourage deliberation may work against factors that encourage political participation. Homogeneous social networks may reinforce individuals' political beliefs and encourage people to vote (as they known they are in the "right"), but homogeneous social networks are not the best sources of cross-cutting political information. On the other hand, heterogeneous social networks provide a good deal of interaction with other political positions but may dampen political behavior such as voting as being exposed to ideas that challenge one's own position may undermine beliefs.

Two thoughts. First, in Chapter 4 Mutz explores the possible ramifications on political behavior (including voting) of cross-pressure from within their social group. The experience of black women during this election cycle is perhaps an excellent opportunity to test the effects of cross-pressure on groups of people (as no doubt scholars are). Contrary to Mutz's description of the dampening effect of cross-pressures, however, it seems that voter registration and participation is skyrocketing among all Democrats, and potentially including among black women -- a group that should be facing a good deal of pressure. Political participation seems to be up even in the face of competing messages about the right choice. Second, Mutz speaks briefly in the conclusion about the role of the media. She contrasts an earlier media experience with the current one, speaking of the difference between broadcasting and narrowcasting. She seems to suggest that during the time of broadcasting, there was more diversity -- "As the number of potential places to obtain news multiplies, consumers must choose among them, and that exercise of choice may lead to less diversity of political exposure" (145). On the one hand, there may have been more political exposure when people were watching one of three television channels and all carried politics whereas now, people can choose not to watch politics. On the other hand, there seems to be a homogeneity of information problem regardless of whether there are few or many news sources. Bennett et al referred to media outlets as sampling from the day's new stories -- everyone carries the same basic stories but there is variation along the dimension.

The best thing about this book is that I got to cite it in a recent conversation with Mike's parents. Mike and I, the Democrats, have often found ourselves head to head with Nancy and Dick Gates, the Republicans. Dick was talking about a conversation with some of his golf buddies, who asked (jokingly or not?) if Dick was able to convince Mike and I yet of the rightness of being a Republican. Nancy and Dick are intensely interested in this presidential election and though both of them will likely vote for Senator McCain, they are very impressed in Senator Obama's candidacy and consume a variety of media -- including Rush, Chris Matthews, and Bill O'Reilly. After discussing the book, we all came to the conclusion that the conversation we were having was perhaps more important than convincing each other that they are wrong and we are right (though we'll probably keep trying to anyway). Actually, conversations with Mike's parents are more comfortable for me because I know I won't turn Republican. It is harder to talk politics with our friends Jeff and Ben because they are Obama supporters and I'm for Hillary . . .