World Values Survey

The five countries I picked in the World Values Survey were the United States, Zimbabwe, Germany, Iraq, and Russia. Besides picking the United States for comparative purposes, I felt that the other four gave the broadest sense of variety. Recently for instance, Germany has emerged as one of the world's leading powers, arguably the economic forefront of Europe. In seemingly the same time span, the state of Iraq, with the involvement of the United States, has gone from bad to worse. It is currently speculated that the country has multiple ties to terrorist networks. Zimbabwe, remaining under the radar for most of my life or at least out of the headlines, is actually headed by one of the world's last dictators. Robert Mugabe has remained the country's Head of State since 1987 despite the country's claims of being a Republic. Lastly, Russia was chosen as it recently has been described as the United State’s most powerful enemy.

The differences between the countries could further be seen when looking at confidence in the press numbers. While all four were within 10% of the United States for “none at all” as well as “a great deal”, all but one were over 10% in “quite a lot” and “not very much”. To put this in further perspective “none at all” and “a great deal” combined made up 20.3% of the total while “quite a lot” and “not very much” made up 78%. This shows that far more people in other countries seem be more optimistic about the press than the United States is. What this most likely could mean is that there is an increased bias in the news, telling citizens what they want to hear. By doing this, citizens are more likely to agree and favor what they are hearing, giving the press a more positive view. As we have learned, many people in the United States follow news sources that they agree with. However as the United States has grown increasingly divided over past few decades, citizens have grown more hostile towards news sources showing favoritism towards one of the two major political parties. This is one possible theory for America's more pessimistic view according to the data compared to other countries.

The differences found in the confidence in the press proved to be on par with the confidence in television. Again, the top two categories would all be within 10% of one another while making up just under 20% of the total just as the middle two would all exceed 10% with 79% of the total. I believe the reason for this is the same as stated before, in that other countries report less contrasting views while America has networks on both sides. However, even with the numbers being several points from one another, a lack of faith in television is worse for a country than lack of faith in the press. Television data or information can be absorbed much faster than in the press and its published works. Due to this fact, citizens may turn more frequently towards television for news stories and takes on issues. This gives it a larger audience that are more susceptible to whatever is being reported. Having this form of news be viewed as untrustworthy has the potential to be damaging for views and unity of a country.

Another survey question I looked at was “Satisfaction with your life”. This survey was based on a 1-10 with 1 being completely dissatisfied and 10 being completely satisfied. The results were as one might think with the United States and Germany having their highest percentages towards the end and the other three nations having majorities in the middle. More specifically the three highest United States percentages were 7, 8, and 9, while Russia Iraq and Zimbabwe were all 5, 6, and 7. What this shows is that although America has its problems and its embarrassments, compared to the rest of the world we are much better off. U.S citizens may complain about the problems our country faces, however as the numbers show, we have a better satisfaction with our lives than do people of other nations do.