OConnor and Sabato, Chapter 10: Public Opinion and the News Media

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OConnor and Sabato, Chapter 10 Public Opinion
and the News Media

• Presentation 10.2 How we Form and Measure Public
  Opinion

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Key Topics

• How we form political opinions
• How we measure public opinion

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How We form Political Opinions

• Ideologues think predominately in terms of a
  particular ideology
• Most Americans are not ideologues
• Americans are more interested in what works
  (pragmatism)
• Three important filters (1) self-interest (2)
  political knowledge and (3) cues from leaders or
  opinion makers

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1a. Personal Benefits

• Americans as a self-interested people
• People vote with their pocketbooks
• The problem of self-interested political behavior
• Favor tax cuts
• Violently oppose cuts in social services

Americans often have great difficulty forming
coherent opinions on issues that dont
personally affect them, such as foreign policy.
Americans often know little about the world
outside the U.S., which leads to great volatility
in public opinion on foreign policy issues.
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1b. Political Knowledge

• Political participation and political knowledge
  are positively correlated
• The higher the education, the greater the
  participation
• Americans enjoy a relatively high literacy rate
  and have greater access to higher education

Highly educated people are more likely to feel a
sense of political efficacy, and to view their
participation as meaningful.
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1bi. Americans Selective Intelligence

• Americans anti-history bias
• Most U.S. high schools seniors have a poor grasp
  of history
• 52 of Americans were not aware that the Soviet
  Union was an ally during WWII
• 63 didnt know that Nixon opened diplomatic
  relations with China

What explains Americans widespread lack of
interest in history?
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1bii. Two Views of Americans

• Walter Lippmann Citizens cannot know everything
  they need to know, but they can contribute to the
  general direction the nation should take
• V.O. Key Voters are not fools
• General knowledge is enough

Voters are best equipped to make decisions in
general elections, where there are usually large
contrasts between candidates. Primary
elections often put voters in a difficult
position because there are few meaningful differen
ces among candidates in primary elections.
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2. How We Measure Public Opinion

• Political actors rely on a variety of methods to
  gauge public opinion
• Election results, the number of telephone calls,
  faxes, or email messages, letters to the editor
  in national hometown newspapers, etc.
• The most commonly used measure are public opinion
  polls

Polls are interviews or surveys with a sample of
citizens that are used to estimate the public
opinion of a larger population.
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2a. Creating a Public Opinion PollStep 1
Creating a Survey Instrument

• How questions are framed may predetermine
  respondents answers
• Example the abortion issue
• Do you favor giving women the right to control
  their reproductive destinies?
• Do you favor the killing of innocent unborn
  children?

Sometimes, pollsters deliberately frame
questions in such a way as to bias the outcome
of their poll in order to influence public
opinion. Such tactics are called push polling.
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2ai. Creating a Public Opinion PollStep 2
Selecting the Sample

• Pollsters must determine the universe to be
  measured (city, state, nation?)
• The importance of random sampling
• gives each potential voter or respondent the same
  chance of being selected
• The N factor pollsters want a large enough
  number to insure representativeness, but not too
  large

Most national surveys use samples of between
1,000-1,500, which yields a margin of error of
between 2-5.
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2aii. Step Two cont.Stratified Sampling

• Using census data and demographics to insure that
  important population characteristics are included
  in the proper proportion in the survey
• The National Election Study (NES) employ
  stratified sampling
• Attempt to prevent volunteer interviews

Most national surveys are not stratified samples,
but rather rely on random telephone surveys.
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2aiii. Creating a Public Opinion PollStep Three
Contacting Respondents

• The most frequently used mechanism for polling
  are telephone polls
• Random-digit dialing surveys connect pollsters to
  potential respondents
• Some academic pollsters use individual, in-person
  interviews

How does personal interaction affect the opinions
of the respondent?
How does the widespread use of caller ID affect
the validity of telephone polling?
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2b. Political PollsPush Polling

• Push polling as a way for candidates to win votes
• Example Would you be more likely to vote for
  candidate X if you knew that the candidate had
  been arrested for a DUI?
• Many people think push polling is unethical

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2bi. Political PollsTracking Polls

• Polls taken on a daily basis that enable media
  and campaigns to chart its daily rise or fall
• Tracking polls have significant reliability
  problems, and contribute to horse race media
  coverage
• Whos ahead? Whos behind? Whos gaining ground?
  Losing ground?

What do those questions contribute in the third
bullet contribute to voters understanding of who
they should vote for?
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2bii. Political PollsExit Polls

• Collected on Election Day from selected polling
  sites
• Every 10th voter is sampled as they leave the
  voting booth
• The results help television networks predict the
  outcome of key races

Exit polls and early victory declarations by the
networks have often been decried as a source of
low voter turnout in western states
like California, Oregon, and Washington.
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2c. Shortcomings of Polling

• The decision in 1990 to consolidate polling
  operations under the Voter News Service (VNS)
• Cost-cutting created great potential for problems
• Rampant problems in the 2000 and 2002 elections
  led to disbandment of VNS

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2ci. Shortcomings cont.

• All polls depend on securing a representative
  sample of the population to be surveyed
• The problem of under representation of certain
  groups (the poor, homeless, people who dont own
  home telephones, etc.)

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2cii. Shortcomings cont.Sampling Errors

• All polls have errors
• The margin of error is a measurement of the
  difference between the actual universe and the
  sample
• At around 1,500 respondents, the margin of error
  of a national sample is about 97

Within the margin of error means that a poll is
too close to call.
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2ciii. Shortcomings cont.Sources of Polling
Inaccuracies

• Offering respondents an inadequate range of
  response (like/dislike)
• Problem of respondent ignorance (Do you
  advocate eliminating the Electoral College?)
• Inability of polls to measure the depth of
  felling on issues

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2civ. Shortcomings cont.

• Polls cannot gauge the willingness of individuals
  to march, protest, or even die for a cause
• Are there political issues in which you
  passionately believe?

Abortion rights activists clash with abortion
opponents. Picture courtesy www.cjonline.com.