James Hamilton: ==”South Park punctures the sacred cows of the left, right, middle and any other direction yet to be defined”

Yea. Verily.

Absolutely agree but be patient with those who get carried away and misunderstand the intent of the show, if you can. When a sacred cow of the liberal left gets attacked on large or small screen it is sufficiently rare and interesting that the injuries of the other sacred cows are overlooked.

Actually inspite of its remorseless and totally admirable attacks on liberals I don’t like the show so much. It seems as you indicate too anti-everything for my taste. Having said that, Team America was brilliant. The vomiting scene. The rightwing country and western song… “What would you do, if you had to give up your dreams for freedom?…Freedom isn’t free; there’s a hefty fucken fee”

- should read “or A bleeding Madonna”. “Bleeding” is not used as an expletive here.

Back on topic however, I am always troubled when the media tries to use poll data as a stand-in for the vox populi… that somehow the results from such a small sample space represent the views of the entire nation. I’m also worried about the number of people who might choose their own views from the results of polls; that reality may be somewhat generated by the model, so to speak. If, in a poll, 41% say they support Howard, then the media says that 41% “of Australians” support Howard, rather than 41% of the sample space. Yet when tens of thousands of people rally on the streets, they are just as likely to be labelled a “mob” than given any credibility. We are too quick to allow polls to speak for us, I think. In a democracy, that is troublesome. Grassroots action is the staple of democracy, not the surveying of some demographer.

One thing I should note is that in 2007 we will see an arriving cohort of young voters who can barely (if at all) remember Labor in Government. Two episodes in my life have probably informed my unreflexive voting behaviour more than anything else… firstly, the relief of my parents at the defeat of Hewson in 1993, and their devestation at Howard’s victory in 1996. I remember being worried because, having been born in 1984… I had hitherto only known a Labor federal Government (of course the Liberals were in the NSW Government for a portion of that time, but I don’t remember them very well at all… except not liking the look of Nick Greiner, for some reason). I can only hope that Young voters will know enough about Labor State Government to realize that the ALP is not a natural party of opposition. Which brings me to my next point… Ovington’s poll should really have been cross referenced with voting preferences in State elections. Obviously a very large number of people in this country vote for the coalition federally and the ALP in the state elections.

The interesting comparison is between this result and the responses by the same students to specific current policy issues in one of the assignments they are required to do. This assignment asks students to look at a current debate over whether, and how, governments should regulate a particular business sector in pursuit of a purported, but contested, public interest goal. The students can play the role either of advocates for a business or peak business council (usually opposing additional regulation and/or advocating reduced regulation), or advocates for one or other campaign group favouring regulation on social, environmental, health or moral grounds. In my experience over four semesters, a majority of the students prefer to act as advocates for the campaign groups rather than the business groups, and write submissions advocating regulation in the public interest, as they see it.

This small case lends support to the view that there is a disconnect between young people’s views on issues and their partisan voting behaviour. Perhaps it could be posited that this is partly due to the ALP failing to sufficiently distinguish its policies (or the public perception of its policies) from those of the Coalition on issues which are salient with younger voters.

Finally, I agree with other posters who have condemned the absence of empirical grounding and/or the misanalysis and over-interpretation of selected slender snippets of empirical data in most commentary on “social issues”.

I read a (smaller ?) version of Ovington’s article some time ago in the Australian, which was similar to the South Park bit of this piece - and remember thinking along Andrew’s lines. Is this rubbish the sort of stuff that passes for serious analysis? Why do people waste their time writing stuff like this? Do they think it’s actually worthwhile?!

Or is it too hard to do the work properly?

And good to see Jeb and the boys and girls back on tv!

Maybe it just peeves me because South Park is one of the few TV shows I still conciously try to watch (apart from the magnificent President Bartlet now once again striding across our TV screens on the ABC), but this notion that South Park is some sort of comic juggernaut of the Right mercilessly puncturing the sacred cows of the Left really shits me to tears. South Park punctures the sacred cows of the left, right, middle and any other direction yet to be defined. The fact that some conservatives feel the need to claim South Park as some sort of political vindication gives me hope, as it means they are more desparate to find some solid signs of validation than I thought they would be.

Have to ask (or shout!): where is the proper analysis of politics in the popular press???????

Something that really struck me was the small amount of actual data used to back up her argument. It’s worth considering her thesis, as young people have moreso voted for the LEFT (borrowing Mark’s notation) in recent decades. So, fine, see if it’s changing. Good thing to do. But there wasn’t much actual data about this - rather, she talks about South Park (!).

I like South Park as it pokes fun at things which can be given this treatment. It doesn’t mean that I and others who like its irreverence are conservative fogies. I’d say that it pokes fun at all sorts of ideas/icons, whether they’re of the RIGHT or the LEFT. It’s not an exclusively left-bashing exercise.

Vee, I doubt there’s any such research. You’d need to do longitudinal surveys, which are very expensive.

Vee, I think you are probably right. Interesting if there’s any research on that.

Anyway, as Rob points out, making any claims based on a sample of 160 is worse than meaningless.

Perhaps the youth that grew up under Hawke/Keating are still Labor and those that grew up under Howard will be Liberal

Is there any truth in that off the cuff assessment?

He seems to be going for the old professor look at the moment, certainly no sorry t-shirts anymore