Public Opinion/The
Media
For Next Time
Liberal Source
O’Connor and Sabato 15, 12
Enduring Debate Sections 41,42,44-46
264 #1
293 1-3
The Ugly- Literary Digest Poll
1936 Election
Over 1 Million Respondents
Predicts Alf Landon Win
Problem- Selecting Participants
Problem- Low response rate
Problem- Too far in advance of election
Polling and Democracy
Verba- Allows voices to be heard that
would not otherwise
Allows greater detail on wishes of public
than elections would.
Dryzek- Empowers status quo
Does not allow spontaneous expression of
opinion
The Uses Of Polls
The media
Election Forecasting
By the public
By politicians


To inform policy
To sell policy
By Interest groups
Public Opinion and
Representation
Large shifts in opinion -> changes in policy
District level Congruence in some policy
domains

Strongest in states with referendum
Public Opinion and
Representation
Can reign in lobbyists
When is public opinion influential?
When it sends a clear message
When it moves dramatically
When Issue is Salient
Limits


Not all issues salient
Public opinion shifts
Public Opinion and Elections
Surveys allow for forecasting
Can enable strategic voting
Large impact on fundraising
Horse race coverage
Presidential Approval
“Do you generally approve of the way
________ is handling his job as
president?”
Important resource
Increased Bargaining Power
More successful with congress
Success brings success
Sources of Approval (or lack
thereof)
The economy


Both current performance and expectations
Economy as a whole more important than personal
Presidential “drama”
War/foreign policy
Media Coverage
Priming


Focusing attention on particular areas
Can help or hurt overall approval
Political Trust
Most of the time, can you trust government
to do the right thing?
Trend- Generally decreasing
Similar trend for other institutions as well
Sources?
Policy Dissatisfaction
Increasing gap between promises/results
Political Scandal/Media
Political Trust
Consequences
Decreased Turnout?
Electoral Choice

Benefits 3rd party candidates and challengers
Difficulty building policy support
Tolerance
A willingness to tolerate the presence of
ideas that you do not agree with
Stouffer 1955
80-90% of respondents support abstract
liberties
30-35% support applications of those
liberties
The more educated more likely to be
tolerant
Tolerance
More recent work
Gap between abstract and applied
Gap between educated and not?
Different groups-> different results
When allowed to pick groups they don’t
like, more educated nearly as intolerant
Americans not much more tolerant than in
the 50s?
The Media
Organizations that provide information to
the public
Information on politics
Information on events
Information on conditions
Past Media Research
Started in late 40s as a response to WWII
Authoritarian Personality- Personality and
Supporting Fascism
Early Media- Propaganda and support for
fascism
Propaganda
Past Media Research
“Hypodermic Needle” model
Still assumed in much of popular political
discourse
Generally not supported by research
Past Media Research
Minimal Effects Model
50’s-80’s
Media had very little impact on public
opinion.



No evidence of direct persuasion
In campaigns, Party ID was main factor
determining vote choice
Limited volatility
Past Media Research
McClure and Patterson The Unseeing Eye
“Television’s Image making power is a myth.”
“The only noticeable effect of campaign news is
an increased tendency among voters to view
politics in the same trivial terms that the
newscasts depict it. Regular viewers of network
news are likely to describe an election campaign
as a lot of nonsense rather than a choice
between fundamental issues”
Modern Media and Public Opinion
Iyengar and Kinder: News That Matters
Subtle Effects
Agenda Setting
Priming
Framing
Agenda Setting
News not so great at telling what to think
But powerful at telling people what to think
about
Increased media attention to an issue
increases importance placed on it
Can trump personal experiences
Agenda Setting
Health care- in 90s-78% of people
satisfied with their care, but large
majorities think there is a health care crisis
Crime- In 90s- Crime decreased, crime
coverage increased, 50% of public thinks
crime is increasing
Fear of crime- Not related to victimhood,
knowing a crime victim, strongly related to
how much TV you watch
Agenda Setting
Hypothesis- those problems receive
prominent attention on the national news
become the problems the viewing public
regard as the nations most important
Implicit- More coverage-> more
importance
Other factors may make story prominent
too
Vivid Cases
Does telling of the story have an impact?
Presentation of vivid story (With human interest
story) or pallid story (statistics)
Expectation- Vividness will be more likely to set
the agenda
Mixed results
In most cases, vivid no more effective, if not less
In stories with race, strong negative impact on
agenda setting if person portrayed is black
Lead Stories
Another facet of presentation
Expectation- First story will be viewed as
more important than later stories
We all have expectations about where
stories go in broadcast/paper
Mostly confirmed
This varies by medium- E.G. On internet,
less of an agenda setting effect
Agenda Setting
Health care
80%- My Doctor Usually Explains things to me
50%- Doctors Usually Explain things to their patients
65%- Doctors are too interested in making money
25%- My doctor is too interested in making money
Crime- In 90s- Crime decreased, crime coverage
increased, 50% of public thinks crime is increasing
Fear of crime- Not related to victimhood, knowing a
crime victim, strongly related to how much TV you watch
Agenda Setting-Importance
Perceptions of national problems more
politically important than perceptions of
personal problems
Problem- Media Coverage can lead to
misperceptions
Problem- Possible manipulation
Upside- Allow people to consider more
than own experiences
Upside- Can highlight significant problems
Priming
Def: The standards citizens use to judge a
president [or other figure] may be substantially
by which stores newscasts choose to cover, and
consequently, which considerations are made
generally accessible
Coverage does not necessarily change overall
evaluation, changes criteria of evaluation
Overall evaluation may go up or down
depending on how president is viewed as doing
on a specific domain
Priming
Example- George Bush and Gulf War
As war coverage increases, so does
approval
As economic coverage increases,
decreases
Irony- Economy not so bad as media
portrayals
Framing
Because frames permeate public
discussions of politics, they in effect teach
ordinary citizens how to think about and
understand complex social problems...
Elites wage a war of frames because they
know that if their frame becomes the
dominant way of thinking about a problem,
then the battle of public opinion has been
won”- Nelson and Kinder 1996
Framing
Sniderman’s Value Pluralism ModelPeople have a number of values that they
hold strongly but that are incompatible with
one another
Issues can tap any of a number of these
values
Framing can determine which values are
deemed relevant for evaluating the issue
Klan Rally Experiment
Tolerance is a tricky issue
Especially the issue of tolerating
intolerance
Two sets of values


Free Speech
Public Safety
Which values applied make difference for
whether people support right to march
Framing Effects
Sexual Psychopaths
Military in Iraq
Health Care
Abortion
Who is Susceptible to Media
Effects?
Those who are exposed

Moderate exposure
Those who are moderately aware
Those who are trusting of the media
Political moderates?
Media and Elections
Intense Coverage
Horse Race Journalism
Public Dissatisfaction
Media Bias
The Problem- disconnect with reality
Perception- Liberal bias
Racial Bias?
Class bias?
Audience bias
News Norms
Impartiality
Equal Time
Conflict
Novelty
Media Types
Newspapers
Broadcast Media
Radio
Narrowcasting?
Cable
Internet
Internet And Politics
Wide range of viewpoints
Interactive
Paradox- Loss of civil society?
Reinforcement of views
More of the Same?