Voter guides are partisan campaign tools disguised as neutral

Evidence

The educator or cultural policy maker is performing one of his most partisan acts when he colludes with the re-signification of real conflicts and contradictions as if they were simply kinks in the communicative chain. Denotative mistakes are not structurally significant. But connotative and contextual “misunderstandings” are, or can be, of the highest significance. To interpret what are in fact essential elements in the systematic distortions of a socio-communications system as if they are technical faults in transmission is to misread a deep-structure process for a surface phenomenon. The decision to intervene in order to make the hegemonic codes of dominant elites more effective and transparent for the majority audience is not a technically neutral but a political one. To “misread” a political choice as a technical one represents a type of unconscious collusion with the dominant interests, a form of collusion to which social science researchers are all too prone. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 813 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Churches route political campaigning through lay teams to evade IRS limits — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 67; Casting political comprehension problems as technical faults is a partisan act — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 813; So-called nonpartisan religious voter guides carry an unambiguous partisan message. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 90

Related

• Casting political comprehension problems as technical faults is a partisan act (similarity 0.88)
• So-called nonpartisan religious voter guides carry an unambiguous partisan message. (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Casting political comprehension problems as technical faults is a partisan act #expands (0.78) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 813