Definition American Government - Assignment Example

Lesson 7: Voter Participation Although the United s of America is praised as a modern and progressive Democracy, voter participation is not a given. Indeed, voter participation is far from complete at both the state and federal levels. Political scientists, sociologists, and many others have attempted to determine the extant of voter participation, the motivations underlying participation or non-participation, and how policymakers might increase voter participation. One the most common approaches relies upon an examination of socioeconomic factors. As an initial matter, voter participation generally refers to whether an eligible voter casts a ballot for local, state, or federal elections. It is important, at the outset, to note that many lawful American residents and citizens are barred by law from voting. This may be the result of convictions for felonies or people in the process of securing voting rights as aspiring American citizens. With reference to those whom are eligible to vote, three of the most commonly discussed and analyzed socioeconomic factors affecting voter participation are those dealing with a potential voter’s age, religious orientation or affiliation, and educational background. Although these factors do not determine degrees of voter participation completely, they do illustrate trends and tendencies rather well. A citizen’s age has long been an important socioeconomic factor affecting voter participation. The general trend has been for people to vote more the older they become; as a result, studies on voter participation have demonstrated that people in the youngest age-group of eligible voters (18-24) tend to participate less in the American electoral processes than older citizens. This may have something to do with notions that their rights and interests cannot be secured immediately through the electoral process or simply a byproduct of their youth and relative inexperience. Religion also functions as a significant socioeconomic indicator with respect to differing levels of voter participation. Certain religious denominations are better organized politically than others and exert of strong type of peer or communal pressure to participate in elections. The American Bible Belt, for instance, is known for having given birth to what is sometimes referred to as the Religious Right. Although religious influence on voter participation has varied from candidate to candidate and issue to issue, it is a socioeconomic factor that can and has helped to explain different levels of voter participation. Finally, scholars and researchers agree that a person’s educational background affects rates of voter participation. People with higher levels of education tend to participate more as voters and, interestingly, people with advanced educations actually tend to align themselves with particular political parties. In short, age, religious orientation, and educational background are three important and relevant socioeconomic factors affecting voter participation in the United States of America. Lesson 8: Freedom of Press and Constraints Although many Americans would seem to think of the freedom of the press as an unlimited sort of freedom this could not be further from the truth. The Constitution is not without limits, a fact the Supreme Court justices deal with every term, and freedom of the press is no exception. A balance is often struck between a general presumption in favor of a freedom of the press and other social concerns and considerations. Some of the social concerns that often cause a balancing of interests are implicated when dealing with fair trial issues, terrorism, and other significant state or national interests. In America, a defendant is entitled to a fair trial; history and experience have taught, however, that the media often sensationalizes criminal trials and participants in order to generate publicity and to turn a profit. The fundamental point is that defendants are entitles to an unbiased trial by their peers, that the media may create undue or unfair bias, and that defendants ought to be shielded from unfair or irresponsible media portrayals or coverage. Press freedoms may be limited as a result. More recently, issues involving the War on Terrorism have affected press freedoms in the United States of America. Individuals, whether American citizens or not, have been charged under terrorist laws that deprive them of important rights. This may include restrictions on access to legal counsel, restrictions on access to certain legal remedies, and restrictions on access to the press. The press, in many circumstances, is barred or otherwise restricted from reporting on certain cases or operations. In addition, it has been argued that, for fear of antagonizing powerful advocates of the War on Terrorism, certain segments of the press have increasingly relied on self-censorship. They are choosing to restrict their own freedoms to investigate and report in a sense. Lesson 9: Political Action Committees The American Heritage Dictionary defines a political action committee as “a committee formed by business, labor, or other special-interest groups to raise money and make contributions to the campaigns of political candidates whom they support.” As a preliminary matter, therefore, a political action committee is a group that is created in order to support or to attack an individual, an ideology, or some issue or issues of political relevance to that group. These groups conduct their activities, whether in support mode or attack mode, in a variety of ways. They may engage in fundraising, they may carry out their own public relations campaigns, or they may publish information in support of their underlying goals. In effect, despite slightly different activities, a political action committee is essentially a creature of federal election law; more specifically, whenever a group or an organization receives more than one thousand dollars for affecting or otherwise influencing a federal election they become defined as a political action committee under federal law and subject to certain laws and regulations. These constraints deal with such things such as maximum contributions and reporting requirements. States are also free to legislate about political election committees regarding local and state elections and these laws are effective to the extant they do not conflict with federal laws dealing with federal law. Some well-known political action committees are associated with the National Rifle Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Bar Association. It would seem, upon reviewing the huge numbers and types, that there is a political action committee for nearly every conceivable issue in American politics. Finally, the sanctity of criminal justice investigations and issues of national security are also often offered as reasons for restricting press freedoms in America. In Iraq, for instance, there were embedded reporters and their reports were pre-screened. The FBI often releases details selectively, and sometimes in misleading fashion, to entrap or otherwise confuse criminals or suspects. The press, to be sure, is constrained in many ways. Lesson 10: Function of Political Parties Whereas a political action committee is primarily concerned with fundraising, political parties in the United States of America function in a much broader manner. These parties are political groupings or organizations, with different factions and interests, which mobilize people and resources in order to maintain or to secure political power or influence through the electoral process. In the United States of America there are two dominant parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, and a number of lesser parties with substantially lesser degrees of power and influence. Their functions are many and varied: political parties organize fundraising, they recruit members and endorse candidates, they engage in pubic relations campaigns and articulate political platforms and ideological frameworks, and they attempt to support those members in political campaigns and other public policy affairs. These parties, in reality, are umbrella organizations that incorporate like-minded but different factions. Conflict is inevitable and a further function of the parties is to attempt to harmonize conflicting opinions in order to present a unified front when elections come around. Lesson 11: Evolution of the Media and Public Access to Information Even a cursory examination of the modern media, as it has evolved fairly recently, demonstrates that the public has greater access to information than ever before; this is not to suggest that the quality of the information made available by the modern media is always reliable, for it most certainly is not, but that the potential exists to learn more about more things than ever before. Freedom of Information requests can not be made via email and delivered electronically; insiders at governmental agencies and major corporations publish web logs discretely and warn the public about underhanded dealings; and, most importantly, minority viewpoints and opinions can reach a wider audience without first having to present themselves to the guardians that patrol the gates of the mainstream media. With this greater public access to information also comes a greater need to judge new forms of media critically and to demand facts and evidence rather than to rely on speculation or conjecture. In the final analysis, the evolution of the media has created more opportunities for learning important information and more pitfalls as far as reliability and credibility are concerned. Works Cited Read More