
Newspaper op-eds change minds - thisisit
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180424133556.htm
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dfee
These days I try hard to maintain control of my perspective not by reading
broadly, but reading judiciously; I have a white-list on sources rather than a
black-list.

For instance, if cable news is on, I fight the temptation to give it my
attention. But I sometimes seek out public news like PBS or NPR. It’s
difficult to identify what the difference is, but I find myself better able to
separate opinions from facts.

For online news: I pay and from a newspaper that gets more than 50% of its
revenue from subscriptions. It also has a finance bent, and is non-US based,
which seems to steer me clear of much of the political echo chamber. Therefore
the op-eds are often on topics that don’t directly impact me and I find it
easier to assess the expressed opinion without emotional investment (e.g. from
today: “Customs Union: The battleground set to decide the fate of Brexit”).

While on emotional investment, I find the public conversation (which I seem to
be less privy to now days) to be alarmist, ideological, and radicalizing.
Perhaps that’s because Breitbart, HuffPo, and the likes are the masters of new
media grabbing impressions and setting the narrative of “what’s news” around
the world.

All in all, my content consumption patterns have shifted from “eat what’s in
front of you” to “toy with your diet and see where you end up; rinse; repeat”.
So I make no claims that this is the right approach, it’s just my current
approach.

~~~
dantheman
Remember it's more than just fact and opinion, it's also about what's covered,
whose interviewed, etc.

~~~
ghaff
That's always been the most reasonable perspective on "bias" in most major
newspapers like the New York Times. I do believe they endeavor to report
stories accurately. But the selection of stories and the way they're
approached almost inevitably a particular set of beliefs and perspectives.

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whoopdedo
When they say the control was not given an op-ed to read, do they mean no
reading material was provided, or that they were shown a neutral article?

I suspect that the increased exposure of op-eds comes from newspapers not
being printed any more. It used to be that they were isolated onto two pages
inside a newspaper. The editorial page and the "opposite-editorial" page. When
reading them you knew you they were expressing the opinion of the writer. (I
used to think the abbreviates stood for "opinion".)

On the internet the boundary between news and opinion blurs. The front of
www.nytimes.com right now has opinion articles prominently featured at the top
of the page. They know that readers don't browse a site the way they do a
printed newspaper. If they want something to be read it has to be one of the
first things they see. But more frequently readers enter an article directly
through shared, aggregated, or searched for links. "Click here to read this in
the New York Times" doesn't tell you if what you're going to is a news report,
op-ed, reprinted press release, or paid advertisement masquerading a news. You
may be halfway through the article before noticing the tag that indicates what
section it's in, if you notice at all.

The effect of this is that readers are either not able or not willing to
differentiate between opinion and unbiased news. Combined with mistrust of
journalism after lying scandals, conflicts of interest, and fake news, readers
are likely assuming everything they read is an opinion. When facts are
inscrutable then the truth of what you know becomes indistinguishable from the
truth that you feel.

~~~
setgree
[http://alexandercoppock.com/projectpages_CEK_opeds.html](http://alexandercoppock.com/projectpages_CEK_opeds.html)

"Study 1:...In Wave 1, we collected pre-treatment background variables,
exposed subjects to one of five treatment op-eds (or nothing), and collected
immediate outcomes."

So it looks like no reading material.

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DanielBMarkham
This is one of those studies that I'm not sure are profound or silly. But of
course people changed their minds after listening to a reasoned discussion,
who wouldn't? The more interesting case would be "people impervious to written
communication".

What I'd like to know is whether people changed their mind or changed their
worldview, that is, do written pieces actually get people to think radically-
different about major parts of their lives? Or do they just get people who are
a bit apathetic more energized and sure of themselves about something they're
already predisposed to generally agree with?

~~~
hugh-avherald
The magnitude of the change is quite large. And I think it is quite plausible
that op-eds only 'preach to the converted' or only persuade those who are
already persuaded. This article shows good evidence that people do change
their minds -- especially as these articles covered topics on which the
treatment group had views on.

~~~
lallysingh
There's burnout, of course. I'm pretty left leaning, and I'm a subscriber, but
I can't stand reading any more NYT op-eds.

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hugh-avherald
Kudos for the researchers for publishing their data and the R scripts to
reproduce their findings.

A minor complaint I have is that the variable names aren't very clear. What's
`dv_flat_agree_w1` etc?

~~~
SJetKaran
I can't find the data/scripts. Can you give the link?

~~~
m-watson
Go to:
[https://www.nowpublishers.com/article/Details/QJPS-16112](https://www.nowpublishers.com/article/Details/QJPS-16112)
and click "Supplementary information" below the abstract.

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cafard
In my 20s and perhaps 30s, I read the op-eds pretty regularly. At some point
after that, my policy changed: if given the headline and the byline I can
sketch out the arguments, I generally skip it.

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the_cat_kittles
im sure there are mixed opinions on “chapo trap house” as a whole, but i think
they have filled a somewhat novel niche of lampooning oped writers who have no
business being listened to. i feel like opeds are passive accepted / groaned
at, but giving them renewed attention and scrutiny has reminded me how little
weight i should give most of the writers opinions. in many cases, they have no
more expertise or knowlege than a layperson on the topic, what business do
they have being read by millions?

~~~
java_script
Their recent episode on The Atlantic & Kevin Williamson was really
enlightening. Establishment media is seen as a “balanced news diet” but it’s
really an extremely narrow ideological band. It’s so telling that the NYT or
Atlantic would never hire an actual leftist (or on the other side, a true
trump believer rather than a never-trump conservative), but they’re bewildered
at the angry response from trying to hire someone who said women who get
abortions deserve capital punishment. Women’s rights are negotiable to them
but capitalism and imperialism can never be attacked. Even in a respected
liberal rag.

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chiefalchemist
I'm only a chapter in on "The Influential Mind" by Tali Sharot, but the op-ed
as influential makes sense. Mainly because a good op-ed should explore the
given issue with some balance (i.e., present and identify with all sides), and
draw its own conclusion.

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austincheney
I have learned from experience that most people cannot differentiate cause
from effort or fact from truth. As such I suspect any published opinion will
change many the opinions of many people without any rational consideration.

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dfxm12
Think of the implications for the old fashioned advertorial[0]...

0 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertorial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertorial)

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emodendroket
Considering the content of some of the op-eds I read, this prospect is more
worrying than the idea that nobody's thinking is affected by them.

