Tuesday, October 11, 2016

The Informational Divide in American Party Politics

Democrats and Republicans not only disagree about which public policies are desirable, but increasingly differ as well over which sources of information are reliable—and, therefore, which facts are really facts. It's hard to understand Donald Trump's rise without noting conservative citizens' increasing rejection of the power of scholarly experts and the "mainstream media" to determine what is and is not true. Today, Matt Grossmann and I write in Inside Higher Ed about "how information became ideological"—and the particular challenge that this trend poses to the traditional role of universities as intellectual authorities seeking to inform policy debates.