Political Ideology: Its Structure, Functions, and Elective Affinities - Assignment Example

Political Advertisements: Political advertisement is a way for the political party to connect to the voters to deliver their political messages. The advertisement is a part of the campaigning strategy. It acts as a marketing tool for the party (Foster, 2010).

Electoral College: Electoral College consists of a group of electors or representatives of the state who elects the president. The significance of such a system is that the system brings the cohesion of the country by ensuring that the elected president has distributed popular support and is not selected on the domination of one or two region support (Kimberling, 9-10).

Political Ideology: Political ideology is the set of ideas and beliefs that a group of individuals possesses regarding the interpretation of the social and economic environment around them. It is argued that the members of the public are ideological in the sense that they hold logical, coherent, sophisticated attitudes. The significance of ideology is the fact that it helps in rationalizing the way things are or whether there is any better option for improving the existing social order (Jost, et al, 307).

Public Financed Elections: Public financing is the way of financing a campaign where the public provides money and other resources to the favorite and qualified candidates to run their office and election campaign. The significance of public financing is that it reduces the dependence on the private sector for funds which thereby reduces the distortions in the governmental process and public financing also encourages the qualified candidates to come forward to take part in elections who earlier were prohibited in election campaigns due to lack of funds (Levin).

Attentive Public: Attentive public is a small group that is more of representative of the general public and consists of best-educated persons who are interested in current political trends and are politically involved. They focus on predicting political policies and their rational thinking guides them during the election process (Walden, 1990).

Independent Expenditures: One of the most controversial campaign financing today is independent expenditure where an individual or group is allowed to spend an unlimited amount of money or resources on any candidate as long as these expenditures are not made on the prior consent of the candidate or any agent authorized by him. Independent expenditure provides a party with an effective tool to avoid spending limit problems imposed by federal election laws (Abramowitz & Segal, 137-39)

Special vs. Public Interest Groups: Public interest group is concerned with the good for whole society without any bias towards any particular segment of the society while special interest group depends on government spending lobby policymakers for government favor towards them. Conflicts of interest arise when any government official makes a judgment in favor of a special interest group resulting in personal economic benefit (Maxwell et al, 133-36).

Citizen Journalists: Citizen Journalists are those people who are engaged in newsgathering and contribute reports to various news channels via mail, texts, photographs, videos. Citizen journalism is of significance as it can help people facing crisis and can present the actual report before the masses by being an eyewitness to the crisis (Allan and Thorsen, 17-30)