Annotated Bibliography

By: Cole Kotran

9-16-23

Smith, Kevin B, et al. “Friends, Relatives, Sanity, and Health: The Costs of Politics.” PloS One,
U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 Sept. 2019,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6760758/.

This article serves a purpose to uncover the direct impact that politics has on the overall
health of Americans. It is quite interesting because since politics are always changing, there
hasn’t been a conclusive study done on how it affects peoples’ health yet, so the strategies of
research in this article were essentially created from scratch. The said strategies used in the
surveys were created by taking questions and open-ended statements used by Alcoholics
Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous in order to turn them into questions that target the effect
of politics such as “I have lost sleep because of politics.” With this model, it makes it much
easier to gather results for the study, so, in turn, there was plenty of information acquired that
proves politics does in fact have an impact on peoples’ health and how a person’s political
association influences their results as well. With that being said, I can use this article to provide
numerical data to support my argument given that there is more than enough research done to
supply the information that I need for my proposal. The article gives me direct evidence of the
effects of politics across different groups and that can be used to support my argument in a
variety of ways.

Murray, Erin. How Differences in Political Ideology Impact Close Relationships How
Differences in Political Ideology Impact Close Relationships. May 2021,
scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2656&context=honorstheses.

This thesis goes over the importance of close relationships in peoples’ lives, and how
political ideologies are creating a divide in said relationships. The author speaks on how previous
research demonstrates the importance of similarities between people in a relationship.
Nowadays, where politics are deemed to be much more important than they should be, it is
harder than ever to come to terms with someone who has different values and beliefs. It never
used to be this difficult to maintain a relationship, at least not at this scale. In this article, the
author’s statements are backed by quotations from other research done in the field to back her
claims. Politics are being regarded as a more important contributing factor in every-day decision
making as opposed to racial identity and even religious association. The author does a good job
at highlighting this change in how a relationship is determined based off pre-existing factors
throughout time. This thesis is crucial for my proposal given that relationships are one of the
most important parts of being a human, and if politics are putting these relationships in jeopardy,
something needs to be said about it.
Adcox, Susan. “Don’t Let Politics Wreck Your Family.” Verywell Family, 26 May 2022,
www.verywellfamily.com/when-families-disagree-about-politics-4112342. Accessed 16 Sept.
2023.

This article is somewhat of a continuation of the previous source as it is a response to the

damages that come from bringing politics into relationships, especially families. It demonstrates
how, as a society, we can combat political unrest between people that we are close to. It uses
psychological evidence to determine how politics don’t have to create divides between people if
we target the issues correctly. It is very important that people are aware of this because now,
more than ever, politics are dividing this country at its roots, and if people start to realize that we
may be able to minimize the damage being done, or even reverse it. This article urges the
importance of having an open mind, even if that means listening to something that doesn’t line
up with personal beliefs. It is very relevant to my research simply because if I can provide a
solution to the issue at hand, it validates my exigence and helps me initiate a call for action. It
also helps me prove what might cause more or less of an issue based on the area of the political
spectrum that the issue is stemming from.

Bail, Christopher A., et al. “Exposure to Opposing Views on Social Media Can Increase Political
Polarization.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 115, no. 37, 28 Aug. 2018,
pp. 9216–9221, www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1804840115,
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804840115. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

This article goes over how the media negatively affects politics and creates more
polarization between parties than ever before simply because people see what they want to see.
The author elaborates on how what people see will shape their opinions and the media is able to
have jurisdiction over that. This is exactly what creates that polarization and there are few things
that we can do to change that. These claims are validated by a survey done to prove that political
polarization is very much alive in the media and the national divide between parties is continuing
to grow as more information is spread throughout the media. This article assists me with my
proposal because it is the root of the problem. If there wasn’t bias and misinformation being
spread, people would believe what they believe and not what the media tells them.
Unfortunately, now, with the younger generations getting older and having grown up with the
media, it is almost impossible to escape it because it is all they know. Therefore, it is important
for my study because I need to highlight where these political divides are coming from, and the
media is one of the biggest contributing factors.
Salvanto, Anthony. “Americans Increasingly Concerned about Political Violence — CBS News
Poll.” Www.cbsnews.com, 5 Sept. 2022, www.cbsnews.com/news/political-violence-opinion-
poll-2022-09-05/. Accessed 16 Sept. 2023.

This article goes over Americans opinions on the increase of political violence and the
political future of the country. The main point is that there is a disagreement of civil rights
between different groups of people, and it seems impossible to come to an understanding about
the topic. It also elaborates on how certain political parties view other political parties to get a
good idea of how certain groups of people feel about each other. This helps to propose possible
solutions for specific groups based on the reasoning behind why they believe what they believe.
The author reinforces the idea that most people don’t believe division is a good idea, and that as
a country we still want to attempt to see eye to eye and to be able to live among each other
peacefully. This helps my proposal because it shows how people feel about the issue based on
surveys, giving me an opportunity to tailor specific ideas to specific people to show them that my
research is valuable and can help resolve political unrest in our country. It is important that I can
make a distinction between what people believe and what is going on, to be able to offer a
solution based off those factors.

Research Proposal
By: Cole Kotran
9-17-23

The topic of my research is the political divide in America and how it is going to affect

future generations. It is no surprise that Americans are constantly arguing over things that are

happening to our country and these arguments always seem to turn into political discussions

when they shouldn’t. This is especially important to me and my generation because I don’t want

to grow up in a country where I must disassociate myself from half the population simply

because we disagree on a few topics. My exigence for the issue covers multiple categories, one

of the main ones being the effects on relationships due to political association. Now more than

ever, people are stubborn when it comes to their beliefs and aren’t very open-minded to opposing

points of view. This is especially harmful to families who may have political disagreements
among themselves because with how the media is trying to portray political groups opposing to

the viewers, it makes it very difficult to listen to alternate views. I plan on looking into

seemingly biased media and online platforms to try to get an understanding on how certain

viewpoints are being portrayed and how people on opposing sides are conversating about them.

This needs to be done because everyone continues to talk about how the news is biased and we

can’t trust anything we see online, but no one wants to act and attempt to figure out a solution

that may save future generations. With the research that I’m going to do in online spaces such as

YouTube, I should be able to figure out what type of people are enhancing this issue and how

they are going about it. I should also be able to determine what type of bias is making matters

worse based on the area of the political spectrum that it falls in. Some constraints that I may face

in this area of my research are the limits of what information I can publicly view. This is because

the media does a good job showing what they want to show, while keeping other situations away

from the public eye. These constraints are a prime example of why my research is necessary and

needs to be taken seriously if we want real change. Moving forward, I have located plenty of

articles that back my claims, many of them elaborating on the psychology behind the political

divide and how Americans are reacting to it. With these sources I will be able to find plenty of

evidence on how political polarization is affecting our lives and the relationships in them. I will

use these articles as a basis for my research in the online communities to try to locate similarities

between how people interact with each other and the rhetorical situation that allowed the

interaction to happen. With this information, I will analyze the contributing factors and the types

of people that are adding to the issue. Going back to my original concern, that being the effect on

future generations, I am going to propose a possible solution to instances where people disagree

and are not willing to be civil about it. This is one of the main issues I need to target because
once America is completely divided, there is nothing more we can do to reverse the damage.

Although the articles I find cover most of the topics I will be elaborating on, there is still

information I need to locate in order to bring together all my research. I would like to find more

possible solutions to the media issue as it seems like that is the root of the problem. Additionally,

I will search for more evidence on the psychological factors that force people to react to politics

the way they do. With this extensive research, I will be able to form concrete evidence on this

issue, which allows me to pick it apart at its core. All in all, I believe this research is vital for the

future of our country, given that nothing is getting better, and something needs to be done about

it. Hopefully this research will open the eyes of some people and help them realize that we as a

country are headed in the wrong direction. The goal of this research is to open the eyes of people

that are actively taking part in politics, in order to show them how to effectively get their points

across without inciting violence that leads to more separation in our country. This violence is the

last thing we need in times like these.