PUBLIC OPINION CHAPTER 9
PART 2
Mr. Westerfeld 9/22-23
BELLWORK
Obama maintains his lead in CNN's national poll of
polls. According to the latest poll of polls, released
Friday, Obama is ahead of McCain by three
percentage points -- 47-44.
The poll of polls consists of three surveys: Gallup
(September 16-18), Diageo/Hotline (September 16-18),
and Big Ten Battleground (September 14-17).
With recent polls showing about 10 percent of voters
still undecided, the debates could prove critical in
deciding the election, according to Paul Steinhauser,
CNN's deputy political editor.
"These debates ... they could be crucial in these
undecided Americans making up their minds. And
those undecided Americans are the ones who are
basically going to sway the election and move it one
way or the other," he said.
POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE
•
•
25% of Americans polled could name their two senators
Political ignorance is a fact of political life given the
high cost of political attentiveness.


You can always be a free rider


Reading, thinking, participation, social friction, and
pessimism can all be costs of political knowledge
Someone will make the decision
Shortcuts
The trusted other, believe what someone you usually
agree with believes (the opposite is also true)
 Party affiliation or ideology

WHY THAT ISN’T SO GOOD IN A
DEMOCRACY
Issues are often too complex to lend themselves
to simple ideological interpretation.
 Shortcut takers can become victims in political
struggles because they cannot effectively defend
their political interests
 Large numbers of politically inattentive people
means that the political process can be more
easily manipulated by the forces that seek to
shape public opinion.

SHAPING OPINION

Government
Presidents and the Executive branch use polls, focus
groups, planted news stories, and film to try to
persuade the public with propaganda.
 Perscription drug commercials
 Armstrong Williams $240,000 taxpayer funds

SHAPING OPINION

Private Groups

Special interests groups may try to shape opinion
because of values or personal interest.
Partial Birth Abortion Ban
 Cheap Handgun Ban
 Sweatshop campaign

SHAPING OPINION

The Media
Can be outlets for the other two
 Do the scandals that the media uncovers impact your
view of politicians and politics?
 Dan Rather’s retirement

MEASURING PUBLIC OPINION
Random digit dialing- a poll in which
respondents are selected at random from a list of
ten digit telephone numbers, with every effort
made to avoid bias in the construction of the
sample
 Selection bias-a polling error in which the sample
is not representative of the population being
studied, so that some opinions are over- or
underrepresented.
 Sampling error- a polling error that arises on
account of the small size of the sample

MEASURING PUBLIC OPINION
Public Opinion Polls- the scientific instruments
for measuring public opinion
 Sample-a small group selected by researchers to
represent the most important characteristics of
an entire population
 Probability sampling- a method used by pollsters
to select a representative sample in which every
individual in the population has an equal
probability of being selected as a respondent

MEASURING PUBLIC OPINION
Measurement error-the failure to identify the true
distribution of opinion within a population because of
errors such as ambiguous or poorly worded questions
 Push Polling-A polling technique in which the
questions are designed to shape a respondent’s opinion
 Salient Interests-attitudes and views that are
especially important to the individual holding them
 Illusion of Salience-The impression conveyed by polls
that something is important to the public when it
actually is not.

MEASURING PUBLIC OPINION
Bandwagon effect-a shift in electoral support to
the candidate whom public opinion polls report as
the front runner.
 Rally round the flag effect- a shift in electoral
support to the status quo during a time of war or
crisis.

HOW DOES THIS INFLUENCE POLICY?
Individual doorstep opinions vs. aggregate public
opinion
 Between 1935 and 1979 about 2/3 of all cases
significant changes in public opinion were
followed within one year by policy changes
 Why doesn’t policy always follow opinion

The majority may not be intensely committed as the
minority
 Structure of the government creates a lag time (ex:
supreme court rulings)
