Chapter 08p

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Chapter 08p

• Phil Haas
• Sydney Stavn
• Emily Hillison

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The Formation of Public Opinion
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What is Public Opinion?

• Public opinion is the attitudes held by specific
  groups and people on political matters. Its even
  more readily defined as the complex collection of
  the opinions of many different people. It is
  never a single or undivided view on a subject.

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Different publics and Definition

• A public is defined as the group who hold their
  opinion on a controversial subject. There are
  more publics than anyone would care to count in
  the U.S. These groups usually have conflicting
  views with one another, and engage in many
  arguments and debates to support their own veiws.

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Family and Education

• People are not born with their views. All the
  views that any one person holds are instilled in
  them at a young age and are enforced for most of
  their life. Two of the biggest and most important
  influences in this situation are families and the
  education system. Children latch onto what their
  parents say to them, and the schools teach them
  what they need to know. Most kids use these two
  to set up their opinions in life.

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Mass Media

• Mass Media are means of communication that reach
  wide, dispersed audiences. This one thing has the
  single greatest effect on public opinion.
  Television, radio and printed materials are the
  largest forms of Media, and every single home in
  America uses these mediums.

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Peer Groups

• Readily defined as the people whom one associates
  with most often, usually meaning coworkers,
  friends and family. Peer Groups are as
  influential to a persons own views as much as
  the Media or any other source of Public Opinion.

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Opinion Leaders

• Opinion Leaders are the head figure in their form
  of Public Opinion. These figureheads are usually
  the driving force behind the media and the peer
  groups they control. Opinion leaders can be
  anyone from Frank at the water cooler at work to
  the President of the U.S.

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Historic Events

• History has a big influence on Public Opinion
  because no one wants the past to repeat itself.
  Many media sources point to the past to show what
  could happen in our current time. Some opinion
  leaders use the past as the basis of many of
  their arguments.

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Measuring Public Opinion
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Measuring Public Opinion

• The most common forms of tabulating public
  opinion are voting, lobbying, books, pamphlets,
  magazine and newspaper articles, talk shows on
  radio and TV, and editorials. Most of these can
  be eschewed and changed around by the interest
  groups, but these are usually reliable and
  trustworthy sources.

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Elections

• In Democracy, the elections and votes of the
  people are used to voice their opinions. Most
  political candidates use the voting numbers as
  their claimed mandate for their elections. In
  reality, polls and elections are usually not very
  accurate because there is such a small range of
  choices offered on ballots.

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Interest Groups

• Interest groups are usually large corporations
  that use their power and reach to influence
  almost all of politics. They use their
  representatives and other forms of influence to
  exert their power over the government and
  political candidates. Some people say that the
  government is actually just run by corporations,
  and Interest groups are all the proof they need.

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Polls

• Polls are considered to be the only really
  accurate gauge of public opinion to use in
  democracy. The earlier forms of polls were
  somewhat inaccurate and were easily faked and
  changed. Today, scientific polls are more common
  and are usually far more accurate than their
  predecessors.

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Polling Process

• Scientific Polling is a very complex process
  involving 5 steps. Defining the Universe (target
  population), Constructing a sample (a
  representative of the population), Preparing
  valid questions (intelligent queries),
  Interviewing (questioning the population),
  Analyze and report findings (finishing the poll).

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Evaluating the Polls

• Polls are usually considered more reliable
  because they come straight from the population.
  The only problem that can come from polls are the
  pollsters (the poll readers) shaping the outcome
  of the poll itself.

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The Mass Media
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The Role of Mass Media

• A medium is a form of communication, and there
  are so many different forms of media in todays
  society that the Media can reach anyone from
  anywhere. Although media does not have a part in
  government, its influence cannot be understated
  in political races and arguments/debates.

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Television

• Television may be the single greatest driving
  force between public and government connection.
  News shows on TV are almost all based on
  political activity, and TV is the easiest form of
  news and world activity that the world turns to.
  It only makes sense that the government would use
  TV to its advantage.

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Newspapers and Magazines

• Newspapers and Magazines used to be the single
  largest influential force on peoples views, but
  has now been forced to take the backseat under
  the weight of the Internet and TV. Some
  magazines, such as Time and Newsweek, are still
  heavily read, but newspapers are slowly starting
  to fade into the past with the advent of
  technology.

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The Media and PoliticsThe Public Agenda

• The public agenda is the list of societal and
  governmental problems that politicians agree all
  need tending and fixing. The media has the power
  to get our population to focus on these things
  and to increase the publics awareness of certain
  global or domestic problems that need the
  attention of the government.

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The Media and PoliticsElectoral Politics

• In the past, governmental parties used the
  influence on each other to recruit the
  representatives to run for public office. With
  the rise of the media in recent years, political
  parties have strayed from the old tactics to
  using these forms of communication to speak
  directly to the people and not have to use
  representatives everywhere.

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Limits on Media Influence

• Even with the medias far reaching influence,
  over half of the people who vote have no real
  understanding of their candidates intention or
  plans. Some simply vote with the more popular
  candidate, and some people simply rely on looks
  and actions. TV has become the biggest battle
  ground for candidates, but these political groups
  spend too much time blasting each other and not
  enough time properly presenting their platforms.

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Sources

• Magruders American Government