Collaborative Research on Political Discussion in the Workplace: Causes and Consequences of Cross-Cutting Political Dialogue

工作场所政治讨论的合作研究：跨领域政治对话的原因和后果

• 批准号: 9818216
• 负责人: Diana Mutz
• 金额: $ 15.23万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-03-15 至 2001-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9818216&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Political; Discussion; Workplace

Political dialogue with non-like-minded others is an essential component of a health, functioning public pshere. Unfortunately, research suggests that people in the United States may be segregated increasingly from those with views which differ from their own, and thus political communication across lines of difference is more and more unlikely in people's day-to-day lives. Residential patterns have moved toward spatially segregated living. In addition to structural trends, exposure to dissimilar views is inhibited by the well-known tendency for people to select politically like-minded discussion partners. Strong ties and frequent interpersonal contact tend to occur within the context of homogeneous interactions, thus limiting the extent to which these contacts bring new views to people's attention. Based on evidence from secondary analyses of four independent surveys, we demonstrate that the workplace is a key context in which political dialogue regularly crosses lines of difference, and thus it constitutes a venue with tremendous potential to influence political attitudes. In order to understand better the current and potential future contributions of the workplace, our project is designed explicitly to study workplace networks of informal political communication. The project promises both theoretically interesting insights on contemporary concerns surrounding the prospects for a public sphere, and practical insights into how the workplace might be utilized better as a context for promoting the goals of both broader and deper public discourse. Our research questions are organized around three broad concerns: (1) What individual and environmental factors facilitate explosure to cross-cutting political views? (2) What are the consequences of cross-cutting political discussion? We examine a variety of specific outcomes that have been posited to result from exposure to diverse views. They include persuasion from one political viewpoint to another; greater awareness of rationales for opposing viewpoints on various issues, and the political tolerance that may flow from such awareness; a deeper understanding of the rationale for one's own political views; alterations in levels of political engagement; and the degree of social trust. (3) What role does the workplace play as a mediating structure in the political life of ordinary Americans? Our study makes uses of three different approaches to examine the contributions of the workplace toward cross-cutting political dialogue. First, we use several existing data sets that tap general networks of political communication in order to examine the ways in which discussants encountered through the workplace differ from those encountered in other venues. Second, since these previous network studies have been designed explicity to study residential social contexts, we plan to conduct a national survey of working Americans that focuses specifically on workplace networks of political discussion. Finally, we plan to conduct more intensive interviews with respondents in each of four different workplaces and five different work units within each of these workplaces for a total of 20 work units. In addition to studying a small number of workplaces in greater depth, the major advantage of this design component is that aggregate measures can be used as independent variables to explain variance in the nature of individual dyads. Beyond this, the contextual data and the dyad-level data can be used as independent variables to explain individual-level attitudes and behaviors. In other words, analyses can be performed across levels and units to draw stronger conclusions about who influences whom.

与志同道合的其他人进行政治对话是健康、运转良好的公共领域的重要组成部分。 不幸的是，研究表明，美国人可能越来越与那些与自己观点不同的人隔离，因此在人们的日常生活中，跨越分歧的政治沟通越来越不可能。 居住模式已经转向空间隔离的生活。除了结构性趋势之外，人们选择政治上志同道合的讨论伙伴的众所周知的趋势也抑制了不同观点的出现。 牢固的联系和频繁的人际接触往往发生在同质互动的背景下，从而限制了这些接触给人们带来新观点的程度。基于四项独立调查的二次分析证据，我们证明工作场所是政治对话经常跨越分歧界限的关键环境，因此它构成了一个具有巨大潜力影响政治态度的场所。 为了更好地了解工作场所当前和未来潜在的贡献，我们的项目明确旨在研究非正式政治沟通的工作场所网络。 该项目既提供了对当代围绕公共领域前景的担忧的有趣的理论见解，也提供了如何更好地利用工作场所作为促进更广泛和更深入的公共话语目标的背景的实际见解。我们的研究问题围绕三个广泛的关注点进行组织：（1）哪些个人和环境因素有助于暴露跨领域的政治观点？ (2) 跨领域的政治讨论会产生什么后果？ 我们研究了因接触不同观点而被假定产生的各种具体结果。 它们包括从一种政治观点到另一种政治观点的说服；更好地认识到在各种问题上反对观点的理由，以及这种认识可能产生的政治宽容；更深入地了解自己的政治观点的基本原理；政治参与水平的变化；以及社会信任程度。 (3) 工作场所作为中介结构在普通美国人的政治生活中扮演什么角色？我们的研究利用三种不同的方法来考察工作场所对跨领域政治对话的贡献。 首先，我们使用几个现有的数据集来挖掘一般政治传播网络，以研究在工作场所遇到的讨论者与在其他场所遇到的讨论者有何不同。 其次，由于之前的这些网络研究的目的是明确研究居住的社会背景，因此我们计划对美国工人进行一项全国性调查，特别关注工作场所的政治讨论网络。 最后，我们计划对四个不同工作场所以及每个工作场所内五个不同工作单位的受访者进行更深入的访谈，总共 20 个工作单位。 除了更深入地研究少数工作场所之外，该设计组件的主要优点是可以使用聚合度量作为自变量来解释个体二元性质的差异。 除此之外，上下文数据和二元级别数据可以用作自变量来解释个人级别的态度和行为。 换句话说，可以跨级别和单位进行分析，以便就谁影响谁得出更有力的结论。