Chapter 5: Public Opinion: Chapter 6: The Media

Instructions:

This exercise is divided into two sections or parts and you will have to answer two (2) questions:

Part One:

• First, you must visit and take the quiz to find out your political ideology at one or both of the following websites:
  • Advocates for Self Government a libertarian website: www.theadvocates.org/quiz
  • Pew Research Center for People & the Press: www.people-press.org/typlogy/quiz
• Then, write a short paragraph (four or five sentences) explaining the results of the quiz(es). Do you believe that these quizzes accurately measured your ideological leanings to the right or the left?

Part Two:

• The second part of this assignment requires that you select a topic in one of the chapters covered by this module and conduct research by visiting one of the websites listed below under the heading of Options.
• Then, write a short essay (two or three paragraphs: minimum 9 sentences):
  • explain why you decided to research that topic;
  • how does it relate to the chapter you selected;
  • discuss whether you consider this site a good tool for learning about American politics.

Options:

• Chapter 5: Public Opinion: Chapter 6: The Media

If you choose to cover this chapter, you must visit a non-traditional mainstream media source and identify whether it leans to the left or the right; or whether the site represents academic viewpoints that are non-partisan (neither left nor right leanings).

• PollingReport.com is a nonpartisan source on current trends in public opinion: http://www.pollingreport.com
• Real Clear Politics is a source for comparing polling results from several sources. It also aggregates the result from election polls: http://www.realclearpolitics.com

Chapter 6: The Media

• Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
• The National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com
• Truth Out: http://www.truthout.org
• The Monkey Cage: http://www.themonkeycage.org
• Chapter 7: Political Parties, Participation, and Elections:To find out information on the next election, register to vote; and/or to learn whether your state allows you to vote through an absentee ballot contact the following web-site:
  • League of Women Voters: http://www.vote411.org
  • Project Vote Smart provides information on elections, candidates; and elected officials: http://www.votesmart.org
• Chapter 8: Interest Groups:
  • For a list of the ten most important interest groups in America visit: http://listosaur.com/politics/10-powerful-special-interest-groups-america/
  • The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative organization provides excerpts on lobbying investigations: https://publicintegrity.org/topics/lobbying/
  • The Center for Responsive Politics provides the most comprehensive list of interest groups and lobbyist: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/
  • American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), one of the most powerful associations of legislators and private sector interest groups: http://www.alec.org/
  • For a full expose on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), visit: http://billmoyers.com/2015/07/24/dark-cloud-of-alec-converges-at-annual-corporate-political-lovefest/

Read your answers and use spell check before submitting them. You can only submit this assignment once. Paste both parts with labeled headings ‘Part One’ and ‘Part Two’ in this assignment dropbox below or attach as a Word document.

• Essays must be submitted through the proper dropbox. Scroll down the page and you will see the instructions and the dropbox.
• Paste your work in the dropbox below or attach it as a Word document. Work that is not submitted through the assigned dropbox or that is submitted using other software will receive a grade of zero.

Note: Written Requirement: All assignments must be written using proper English grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Four (4) points will be deducted for each spelling, grammatical, and/or punctuation error. Work that contains more than five (5) spelling, grammatical, and/or punctuation errors; or work that does not meet the minimum number of sentences required will receive a grade of F (‘0’ points).

Essays are automatically submitted to SafeAssign. Work that SafeAssign identifies as having more than a 10% rate of similarity after quoted material and small matches (10 words or less) are excluded will not be read and will receive a grade of F (No points).