Political

The more attention people pay to politics, the more likely they are to be left/liberal

The more attention someone pays to politics, the more likely they are to be left-liberal* in their views. Although any causation could run the other way – interest in politics may drive political views, or vice-versa, or both.

That’s the finding from the latest British Election Study data, as crunched by Paula Surridge:

Graph from Paula Surridge on how political views vary with interest in politics

Most likely, this helps explain how politics on Twitter can be rather different from politics as it plays out in the ballot box, something which comes up in much other evidence too ([1], [2] and [3]).

 

* That is, liberal on the liberal-authoritarian scale and also left on the left-right scale. For more on this way of looking at the electorate, see Paula Surridge’s article here.

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6 responses to “The more attention people pay to politics, the more likely they are to be left/liberal”

  1. Another possibility of course is that neither causes the other and both are driven by some third characteristic.

  2. So if we want to convince voters on voting for us and selling STV we should aim consistantly on facebook and other sights ,not twitter, cos we are already converted (not to mention pushing on other media outlets and leaflets,door knocking).

  3. different profiles on different platforms, that makes sense.. the bit that I still don’t get is why do people believe the lies, and why do people vote for a fraud and a chancer.. if you wouldn’t trust a guy to hold onto your dog/ mind your baby(or even your pint).. why in heavens’ name would you trust him to run the country..?

  4. Even at the top end of the scale, that’s still only around 25% in the Left/Liberal bracket. Would be interesting to know the cut-off points for this measure.

    • I read the bar chart differently but I’m not sure I’m correct. I thought that the bars add up to 100%

  5. This doesn’t much surprise me. What is interesting is the dip in the middle. People who are bang in the middle on the left+liberal versus right+authoritarian axis are not at all intersted in politics. This has a message for anyone trying to base a political party in the dead centre.

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