LECTURE 1-2: NATURE OF PUBLIC OPINION Flashcards
Public
people who share something in common
people who share something in common
public
Opinion
position people take on an issue, policy, action or leader. they are not facts, express people’s feelings
position people take on an issue, policy, action or leader. they are not facts, express people’s feelings
opinion
Attitude
persistent general orientation toward people, groups, institutions. They shape opinions
persistent general orientation toward people, groups, institutions. They shape opinions
Attitude
Public opinion
represents people’s collective preferences on matters related to gov and politics. sum of many individual opinions
represents people’s collective preferences on matters related to gov and politics. sum of many individual opinions
Public opinion
Majority opinion
obtained when you aggregate opinions equally. PO: opinion most people hold on an issue. In a democracy, the opinions of the majority are the ones that should count the most and should guide decision-making.
Elite Opinion
Politicians, pollsters, policy specialists, activists, and journalists assume the position of opinion leaders, those who shape, create, and interpret public opinion. According to this view, people don’t have time to stay informed on all issues and we can’t trust their opinion.
- PO should be managed by specialists who are knowledgeable and capable of promoting the correct policies.
- Rely on second-hand accounts conveyed by elites through mass media.
IS the public informed enough
No but heuristics and aggregation
heuristics
People do not need to be very informed about everything, as long as they know who to turn to on policy matters.
aggregation
summing up individual choices leads to rationality of some sort, no matter how irrational. Principle of collective rationally: extreme positions tend to counterbalance, and the distribution around the correct choice follows a bell-shapes curve (normal distribution).
Theory of public opinion Zaller
how individuals convert political info into political opinions
consideration
marriage of information and predispositions (prior held beliefs)
- Information allows the public to form a mental picture about a given issue (often lack direct experience)
- Predisposition allows them to motivate some consideration about it
RAS model
Receive, Accept, and Sample based on 4 axioms: reception, resistance, accessibility and response. how individuals respond to political info
Reception axiom
the more an individual is concerned with an issue, the more she will be exposed to and receive political messages of that type
Resistance axiom
people tend to resist arguments that are inconsistent with their political predispositions as long as have the contextual information necessary to understand the link between the message and their predispositions.
Inverse-U relationship between awareness and opinion change.eople who know the most about politics: receive a lot of information about incumbent’s campaign and are better able to evaluate the new info they encounter critically => RESIST MESSAGES, LITTLE AFFECTED BY POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
- People who pay little attention to politics: receive little or no info about incumbent’s campaign => DON’T RECEIVE THESE MESSAGES, LITTLE AFFECTED BY CAMPAIGNS
- People with intermediate levels of political knowledge: MOST AFFECTED BY INFO
Accessibility axiom
the more recently a consideration has been made, the easiest it comes to mind
response axiom
individuals answer survey questions by averaging across considerations that are immediately salient or accessible to them (they average out the most important considerations that come to mind). Instead of considering relevance, people answer with the things on top of their heads
