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What is public opinion?
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What is the public
agenda, and how is the
agenda shaped?
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How is public opinion
measured?
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What role does the
media play in shaping
public opinion?
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What effect does the
media have on
individual political
beliefs and voting
behavior?
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How people feel
Measure everything… why commission
them?
Not uniform (some groups more than others)
Political issues
 General public (day to day)
▪ Does not have to be of interest
 Issue public (a cause)
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Few politicians seek the approval of the
general public as a whole (except president)
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People who measure public opinion are not
just interested in the direction or the current
moment
Try to gauge the characteristics:
 Saliency
 Intensity
 stability
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Is the degree to which it is important to a
particular individual or group
For example, social security
 Senior citizens?
 Young voters?
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How strongly do people feel about a particular
issue?
High intensity
 Can wield strong political influence even when the
group is relatively small
 Example, gun control
▪ Most favor some kind of gun control
▪ Intensity is not high, consider other issues
▪ NRA minority position with very high intensity and members
do vote based on the issue
▪ Result, NRA is one of the most powerful lobbying groups.
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Public opinion on issues changes over time
Some issues like support for democracy or a
controlled free-market economy remain stable
or constant.
Other change quickly, case: last 2 yrs. of
President Bush, Sr. administration
 During Gulf War (1991) Bush had recorded the highest
public approval ratings of any president since 1945
 Less than 2 yrs. later, majority of Americans showed
their disapproval of his performance by voting against
him.
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By elections
 Indirect measure of public opinion
▪ Yes or no vote
▪ Rarely translates into clear and specific opinions
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Referenda
 Only for a specific issue
 Very infrequent – submit to popular vote by a
legislative body (not all states even use this)
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Most frequent and direct is public opinion
polls
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Polls
 Designed by asking questions of a much smaller
group
 Achieve this through random sampling (a
representative cross section)
 How?
▪ By phone, machine that dials numbers randomly
▪ By exit poll, target voting districts that collectively represent
voting public and randomly poll voters who are leaving
▪ When preformed correctly, can measure the opinions of 300
million Americans by polling a mere 1500 of them.
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“Do you approve or disapprove of the death
penalty?” Would yield a different result than,
“Would you want the death penalty imposed
on someone who killed your parents?”
Most try to phrase them objectively
Many generally ask closed ended multiple
choice questions v. open ended questions
(explain…)
Closed ended easily quantified
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Polling organizations include a sampling error
 Tells how far off the poll results may be
 Suppose a poll says 60% favor the death penalty with
a sampling error of  4 percent
▪ Actual % could be anywhere between 56 and 64
▪ Generally, the more respondents a poll surveys, the lower the
sampling error.
 Another cause of error, dishonesty
▪ Some answer polls as they feel they should verses how they
really feel
 Well known polls Gallup poll and Harris poll
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Views of individuals
Process called political socialization
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Family
Location
School
Religious institutions
Mass media (youth?)
Higher education (questions beliefs)
▪ College campuses that are highly politicized and lean in one
direction strong impact on students there
 Real life experiences
▪ Generalizations.
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Conservative
Liberal
Moderate
An ideology is a coherent set of thoughts and
beliefs about politics and government.
Liberal and conservative are the predominant
ideologies in the United States
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Stress individuals should be responsible for their
own well being and should not rely on
government assistance
 Tend to oppose government interference in private
sector
 Oppose most federal regulations
 Support free market to determine costs and business
practices
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Social conservatives
 Powerful wing
 Do support government action on social issues
Believe government should remedy the social
and economic injustices of the marketplace
 Support government regulation of the economy
 Support government efforts to redress past
social injustices (like affirmative action)
 Want strict enforcement of the separation of
church and state
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 Against school prayer
 Against bans on abortions (perceive as motivated by
religious beliefs)
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Makes up the largest portion of the American
public
In 1993, nearly half of all Americans identified
themselves as politically moderate
Moderates do not constitute a coherent
ideology
View themselves as pragmatists who apply
common sense rather than philosophical
principles to political problems.
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Compared to other western nations, we have
fewer main ideological groups
Americans readily vote outside of their selfprofessed political beliefs
 In 1996, 30% of Americans identified as conservative
voted for Bill Clinton over Bob Dole
If you have strong ideological beliefs, you tend
to be the most politically active
 Balancing act, to reach the top of your party you
must appeal to the more ideological party
faithful BUT to win the elections you must move
back to the center to win over the general public
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There is no one-to-one correlation between people’s backgrounds and
their political beliefs BUT people who share common traits TEND to share
political beliefs.
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Race/ethnicity
Religion
Gender
Income level
Region
Plays an important role in the development of public
opinion
 Includes the following:
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News broadcasts on tv and radio
Newspapers
News magazines, like Time and Newsweek
Newsmaker interview programs like Meet the Press or
Larry King Live
 Magazine broadcasts like 60 minutes and 20/20
 Political talk radio like Rush Limbaugh
 Websites, blogs, and online forums (we can look at
few…Huffington, Politico, etc…)
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Provides Americans with most extensive
exposure to politicians and the government
In some ways, like an intermediary between
the people and the government
 Questioning motives
 Questioning purposes
 Then reporting
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As the literacy rate in our country grew so did
the impact of the news media
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Most important role is setting the public agenda
 Decide which news to cover
 Decides relative importance of political issues
 Dynamic, as interest in a story grows so does its
importance
 Less clear how it can influence public opinion
▪ Generally accepted that it does only when coverage is
extensive and it is predominantly positive or negative
▪ Example, studies show public approval of the president is
volatile and changes depending on the type of coverage
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Most Americans choose media that reinforce
their political beliefs.
Lots of critics
Objectivity?
Time and space constraints? Decide what facts
to omit.
 Their sources of information can pass on bias
 Most modern politicians understand the power
of the media and attempt to influence coverage
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 Stage events
 Press releases
 More frequent and more sophisticated in recent
years.