by Summary:
Today, we have empirics, and what we know can best be found in John Zaller’s The Nature & Origins of Mass Opinion. In brief, Zaller summarizes the academic literature on public opinion: There is a high variance in political awareness around a very low mean. Public opinion is extremely unstable on matters large and small. Wildly different findings can result from the same survey sample by simply ordering or framing questions differently. There are numerous examples of dramatic shifts in public opinion over very short periods of time. The vast majority of people have no discernable ideology and don’t even posses “true attitudes” about most political matters. Instead, they are ambivalent and have a myriad of partially independent and contradictory ideas and beliefs that co-exist
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: democracy, elite disocurse, political persuasion, public opinion
This could be interesting, too:
Today, we have empirics, and what we know can best be found in John Zaller’s The Nature & Origins of Mass Opinion. In brief, Zaller summarizes the academic literature on public opinion: There is a high variance in political awareness around a very low mean. Public opinion is extremely unstable on matters large and small. Wildly different findings can result from the same survey sample by simply ordering or framing questions differently. There are numerous examples of dramatic shifts in public opinion over very short periods of time. The vast majority of people have no discernable ideology and don’t even posses “true attitudes” about most political matters. Instead, they are ambivalent and have a myriad of partially independent and contradictory ideas and beliefs that co-exist
Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: democracy, elite disocurse, political persuasion, public opinion
This could be interesting, too:
Joel Eissenberg writes Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others
Barkley Rosser writes Pushing Back For Democracy Around The World
Barkley Rosser writes Pushing Back For Democracy Around The World
Frances Coppola writes Democracy won’t save you
Today, we have empirics, and what we know can best be found in John Zaller’s The Nature & Origins of Mass Opinion. In brief, Zaller summarizes the academic literature on public opinion:
Doesn't speak well for democracy.In an attempt to synthesize these and several other observations about public opinion, Zaller constructs what he calls the RAS (Receive-Accept-Sample) Model to explain the formation of public opinion. The mathematical model is built upon four axioms:
- There is a high variance in political awareness around a very low mean.
- Public opinion is extremely unstable on matters large and small. Wildly different findings can result from the same survey sample by simply ordering or framing questions differently.
- There are numerous examples of dramatic shifts in public opinion over very short periods of time.
- The vast majority of people have no discernable ideology and don’t even posses “true attitudes” about most political matters. Instead, they are ambivalent and have a myriad of partially independent and contradictory ideas and beliefs that co-exist comfortably with one another—which Zaller terms “considerations”—pertaining to most matters of political interest.
- Elite discourse is the most important driver of public opinion. After a particularly powerful account of how this was the case in white America’s about-face on the matter of racial equality, Zaller writes “If elite cues can change racial opinions, which appear to be among the most deeply felt of mass opinions, they can probably affect most other types of opinions as well.”
- Even so, individual political predispositions matter; they are “the critical intervening variable between the communications people encounter in the mass media, on one side, and their statements of political preferences, on the other.” Political predispositions are rooted in life experiences, childhood socialization, direct involvement in the raw ingredients of policy issues, social and economic status, inherited personality factors, and tastes.
- Elite discourse does not play an important role in the formation of political predispositions in the short run, but over the long run, exposure to elite discourse makes one more susceptible to it and likely has some effect on underlying predispositions.
Niskanen Center
Jerry Taylor
ht BDL at Grasping Reality