Polarization

3. Over the past several years, the term “polarization” has been receiving a lot of attention from political journalists and academics, particularly with regard to American politics. Democratic and Republican voters are said to be “polarized,” as are members of the House and Senate. Think for a moment about the concept of “polarization.” To that the electorate, for example, is polarized, on must also have an idea of what shape a nonpolarized electorate would take. Political scientists have, of course, addressed the measurement issues associated with this concept.
4. Using available online resources (generally called “databases”) through the university library, search for one of the following: American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, or American Political Science Review. Having located one of these journals, search for “polarization” within the journal and find a scholarly article on the topic. (Note: You will need to gain access to the full article, not simply the abstract).
5. Browse the article you cited above. Write a brief paragraph that describes the operational definition of polarization. That is, how is the concept “put into operation” as far as measurement in the research article?

4. Go to the “all-class-cafe” in the Slack workspace for the class and read the post by your instructor about the correlation between population density and party affiliation/voting. What is a causal “mechanism” (you only need to address one) suggested by the article? Explain this causal mechanism briefly. Hint: Another way to think about a casual mechanism is it is the explanation/factor/variable that really connects the independent variable with the dependent variable. For example, if we say smoking causes lung cancer – years of research, particularly epidemiological research, finally identified that the carcinogens in smoke were the key causal mechanism.

5. What are the implications for Silver’s arguments for the public’s ability to understand quantitative information about the COVID-19 pandemic? Imagine that you are a public health administrator—how would you adjust your communications with the public given Silver’s thesis? (You should provide a minimum of two paragraphs for this answer.)

6. Select one empirical research article published since 2010 in a journal in social science in your area of specialization (e.g., public administration, political science, public administration, criminal justice, communication studies, etc.) and do the following and please do not be sloppy—the purpose of this is to make sure you are crediting sources in the appropriate scholarly and professional way.

Provide the complete citation for the article (use Chicago Author-Date or for Communication Studies’ students you may use your discipline’s standard format).  At the end of your citation, be sure to include a stable URL (e.g., DOI, PURL . . .) if available.  If a stable URL is not available, attach a PDF file of the article (in Blackboard Learn) along with this assignment.  Beware that on some databases (such as Academic Search), there is a citation button in which you can “copy” a citation from a source you’ve found–but the Chicago Author-Date selection is really NOT Chicago Author-Date and will need some minor editing.

For a helpful guide to Chicago Author-Date citation style, go to the following: http://libguides.csuchico.edu/citingsources-chicago-author-date-style.

For a helpful guide on determining whether an article is “empirical,” go to the following: http://libguides.csuchico.edu/empirical. And, remember, if you have trouble identifying the items in the question below, find another article. Some authors are much more clear than others!

Use the article to answer the questions 7-10 below:

7. What is the research question? (You may pick the broad research question here)

8. What is the research hypothesis? (If there are several in the article, pick one. Please be as specific as possible—if you are not, it is probably not yet a hypothesis.

9. What is an independent variable used to “test” this research hypothesis? (HINT: Make sure that the variable corresponds to your hypothesis that you described above in question 6.

10. What is a dependent variable used to “test” this research hypothesis? (HINT: Again, make sure that the variable corresponds to your hypothesis that you described above in question 6).

NOTE:  When you are asked to explain your answer for a question in the assignment above, this is a prompt to be sure to thoroughly answer the questions in ESSAY format and imagine you are explaining it to a non-expert, member of the public.