Tagged: conservative

Political & Economic Sociology

The UK Election: How to lose friends (and still influence people)

Roy Jenkins famously described Tony Blair’s task in getting Labour into power in 1997 as “like a man carrying a priceless Ming vase across a highly polished floor”. This has now become something of a truism of electioneering. According to this view, winning power is about damage-limitation, about not messing up, and it implies a strategy of ‘triangulation’ – co-opting voters from other parties whilst keeping your own voters onside. It implies a certain lack of ambition, trying to carry as many...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Media & Communication

To the left, to the left; everything you know in a box to the left… Bias in the media?

by enteringthewhirlpool The tendency of people to perceive media sources as biased against their own viewpoints has been well documented. The bias can take the form of omission, where relevant facts, perspectives and arguments are not conveyed to the viewer. An example of this would be the Daily Show. A typical reaction of a social democrat (I refuse to use the word ‘liberal’ in this context, as it has a perfectly good alternative, distinct and historical meaning) to the show...

Political & Economic Sociology

Politics and the Professor

by theoryforthemasses In his 2004 American Sociological Association Presidential Address, sociologist Michael Burawoy suggested that the discipline of sociology moved politically leftward in recent years, whereas the United States generally moved to the right. This perpetuated the perception of sociology as a left-leaning, liberal discipline. Moreover, it has long been a contention of the politically conservative (and many general sociology students) that the liberal bent of academic professors, particularly in the humanities, is both too obvious and influential in the...