Reply #27: It can also depend on where they live.

[ieoeja]

When I visited relatives living in southern Indiana during the 2000 presidential election, I was amazed at how Republican everyone was (we all grew up Democrats). But during my visits I read the local newspapers and watched the local television and listened to the local radio. I read/saw/heard the same pro-Bush/anti-Gore news as I did in Chicago. But none/nada/zero of the pro-Gore/anti-Bush news I heard in Chicago was being printed/broadcast down home.

If all the news you read/see/hear says "Republicans are great humanitarians while Democrats want to kill and eat your children" then you're probably going to become a Republican.

Everyone here seems perfectly aware of the national rightwing media: FOX, obviously; CNN openly asking Republican politicians for tips on how to make their news more palatable to conservatives, etc. But what is far more frightening to me is the complete takeover of the media in remote areas. Where I grew up, for instance, they no longer have a single CBS affiliate while they have two FOX affiliates. One of the FOX stations is new. The other used to be CBS, but was purchased and converted to FOX.