At a time when most everybody in America is lining up, taking sides for the next us versus them battle, I read an interesting article last week that posits America is not as divided as some who may be benefiting from division would have you think. Joseph Ratliff, an editor at Allsides.com opened with a critique of a Washington Post article reviewing a recent survey of American priorities for education. (“How Media Bias Makes Polarization Appear Worse Than It Actually Is,” allsides.com, Apr 6, 2022) The gist of Mr. Ratliff’s commentary was although the Post headline “Democrats want to teach kids sex education. Republicans want to teach them patriotism” and lede highlighted significant differences on two education initiatives noted in the survey, it buried the striking agreement on 10 other initiatives, including respect for people of different races, languages besides English, and independent thinking.

Why is the division between the two controversial initiatives emphasized rather than the 10 that the ideological groups agree on? Because conflict sales. It may be healthier for the country and its populace that to note there is more consensus and commonality than discord and disagreement among Americans, but it is healthier for a new outlet’s bottom line to focus on the disparities, People pay more attention to news that can adversely affect them than positive reports. But people also want to know that others are even more adversely affected. This is reinforced in the “us versus them” manner of reporting, establishing clear lines between us and them so the outlet can rely on a consistent audience to present to its advertisers, sponsors, and contributors. By manipulating the importance of datasets and presenting what they feel is of importance to its consumers. outlets can honestly say they are not manipulating the data, only reporting it, although not necessarily all of it or not all of it until after the average reader/listening/surfer has reached his or her attention span limit.

The media has been able to take advantage of the average American to be unaware of much outside his or her own social network. An unawareness that has also been exploited by social media’s algorithms. This unawareness was described in detail in a report of a pair of surveys conducting in January of this year by YouGovAmerica. (“From millionaires to Muslims, small subgroups of the population seem much larger to many Americans,” yougov.com, Mar 15, 2022) When people’s average perceptions of group sizes are compared to actual population estimates, Americans tend to vastly overestimate the size of minority groups, but underestimate the size of majority groups. For example, people surveyed estimated that 19% of Americans make more than $500,000 per year when the actual is 1%, that 24% of Americans are gay, lesbian or bisexual when the actual percentage are 3, 3, and 4% respectively, that 37% of Americans are military veterans and the actual is 6%, and that 52% of Americans own a gun and the actual is 32%. Similar findings were noted for ethnic and religious minorities. However, when groups are clearly in the majority, Americans underestimate. Those surveyed estimated 49% of Americans own their house and the actual is 65%, that 61% of Americans have flown on a plane and the actual is 88%, and they estimated that 68% of Americans have a high school diploma or equivalent when the actual is 89%. It is important to recognize that Americans by and large cannot determine what is and is not prevalent because if the public cannot make that determination, the media can more easily skew reporting and maintain the polarization that benefits them.

How do we avoid becoming pigeonholed by media influencers. Always read complete articles rather than just the headline or highlight. If you see a blurb on social media, go to the full article cited in the post and if a full article is not cited, consider the information suspect. And know your own susceptibility to misunderstanding. I recommend you review the YouGov survey results and see how you estimate common standards). The survey explored how people estimated groups in family, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, politics, income, and education.  Actual percentages were determined based on information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the results of well-established polling firms.

Don’t be stuck on one side of “us versus them” when the middle group is actually where you will likely find most of your neighbors.