Political Attitudes Across World Regions, Gender, and the Media

Abstract

This chapter charts variations in authoritarian, democratic, and multicultural attitudes over world regions, by gender, and across the range of media users. We investigate whether attitudes are equally distributed over world regions or if they vary. The first option holds that if the differences between regions are not substantial, attitudes are much the same for the various regions. We call this the ‘equality hypothesis’. The opposite or ‘diversity hypothesis’ assumes differences between key attitudes across regions. A different rate of historical development, contrasting religious and cultural traditions, or different rates of economic development may account for such differences. (See Chapter 2 for attitude scales.)