COM 413. Public Opinion, Propaganda and Mass Media

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COM 413. Public Opinion, Propaganda and Mass
Media

• University catalog course description
• Techniques of sociological and political
  persuasion, mass media and public opinion in the
  United States developments in international
  propaganda. Integrates disciplines of sociology
  and political science in application to operation
  of communication and communications media in
  society.

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Course Objectives

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• 1. Identify, describe, and explain major
  concepts in the studies of public opinion,
  propaganda, persuasion, and mass media.
• 2. Recognize, understand and analyze the
  processes underlying public opinion and
  propaganda, exemplifying these with reference to
  significant historical and current events.

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Course Objectives

• 3. Identify, understand, apply and critique a
  variety of qualitative and quantitative
  techniques for measuring public opinion.
• 4. Understand interdisciplinary character of
  the course subject.
• 5. Outline contributions to our understanding
  of propaganda and public opinion of research from
  the fields of communication, mass media, social
  psychology, political science, and sociology.

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Course Objectives

• 6. Understand, exemplify and critique the
  interrelationships between propaganda, public
  opinion, media institutions, the market,
  political influence and power.
• 7. Understand and discuss ethical conventions
  that proscribe the misuses of propaganda and
  manipulation of public opinion.

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Structure of the Course

• The first part of the course focuses on public
  opinion, its formation and impact on public
  policy
• In the second part we turn to propaganda attempts
  at modifying/changing public opinion.
• The last part will be spent mostly on analysis of
  propaganda and the role of the media.

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Required Text

• Jowett, Garth S. and ODonell, Victoria
  Propaganda and Persuasion. 5th Ed

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Reading

• All reading assignments must be completed before
  class meeting
• It is important that students keep up with
  required reading (according to course schedule),
  even when the reading may not be specifically
  covered in corresponding class.
• You are recommended to read ahead

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Midterm and Final

• Multiple choice / true-false questions
• and / or
• short-answer questions
• A review for the examinations will be given in
  class and placed on the web

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Thought letter

• Two thought letters in which you will explore
  your responses to questions or problems covered
  in your texts and lectures.
• The topics will be assigned during
  lectures/discussions in response to interesting
  questions, problems, and students suggestions.

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Propaganda Example

• An example of current propaganda and your
  analysis of the example.

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Final Group Project

• Final Group Project is a written report and class
  presentation in which you will need to analyze in
  depth a specific instance of media propaganda in
  relation to persuasion and the formation or
  manipulation of public opinion.

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Why Public Opinion?

• Inputs?Government?Public Policy
• Inputs Public Opinion
• Political culture/Political attitudes
• in aggregate
• through political parties and interest groups

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Why propaganda?

• The main goal of propaganda is to aid policy, to
  make the cost of policy less.
• Goebbels We do not talk to say something, but
  to obtain a certain effect.

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Democracy, Public Opinion, and Government Policy
the benefits

• Jeremy Bentham (17481832) The greatest
  difficulty of the legislator is being in
  conciliating the public opinion or correcting it
  when erroneous
• But, even if conciliating is difficult, public
  opinion is a useful check on the authority of
  rulers.
• Bentham demanded that all official acts be
  publicized, so that an enlightened public opinion
  could pass judgment on them

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Democracy, Public Opinion, and Government Policy
the perils

• Tocqueville was concerned that a government of
  the masses would become a tyranny of the
  majority.
• But, whether public opinion is regarded as a
  constructive or a baneful force in a democracy,
  there are few politicians who are prepared to
  suggest in public that government should ignore
  it.

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Three Possible Relationships

• Public opinion is merely a constraint on public
  policy
• Public opinion exerts strong pressure to direct
  or redirect government policy
• public opinion is ignored by government.
• Sometimes public opinion is a driving force of
  change.
• But there are also cases when government has
  clearly
• not done what the public wanted as expressed in
  public
• opinion surveys

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Salience

• An issue that is salient (widely publicized,
  known about, important) is more likely to
  stimulate public opinion, and that opinion is
  more likely to be influential.
• Examples
• Economic crisis 2008 / Iraq / Vietnam as these
  issues grew more salient, the stronger and more
  influential was public opinion.

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Constitutional Rights

• An issue that is seen to clash with fundamental
  constitutional rights is likely to stimulate
  influential public opinion.

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Why Do We Expect Public Opinion to be Influential?

• Publicly elected officials have strong motivation
  to anticipate public opinion.
• People tend to vote for politicians that seem to
  be like them, and therefore people and
  politicians would tend to share opinions.
• Politicians would feel morally obliged to respect
  the publics wishes.
• Processes of democratic pluralism would lead us
  to expect a linkage, over time, between the
  interests of groups and government policy.

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Research

• Monroe (1979) found that 64 of the time,
  government policies have been consonant with
  majority public opinion
• Page and Shapiro (1983) found congruence 66 of
  the time.
• Miller and Stokes (1963) found modest
  co-relations between public opinion in given
  congressional districts and roll call voting by
  district representatives in Congress, especially
  on salient issues.
• Erikson (1976) showed (moderate correlation)
  opinion-policy linkages in the case of particular
  issues at state levels.

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Which comes first public opinion or policy?

• Political parties tend to enact policies adopted
  by their party platforms in campaigns and are
  consistent with majority opinion. This occurs
  64-74 of the time.
• Politicians who monitor public opinion with a
  view to manipulating it, sometimes end up
  adopting policies in line with public opinion (a
  recoil effect)
• Other studies find a reciprocal relationship
  between public opinion and policy-making, with
  governments leading as well as responding to
  public opinion.

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Is Responsiveness to Public Opinion a Good Thing?

• Non-responsiveness to public opinion need not be
  undemocratic where, for example, the government
  is looking to the best longer-term solution, or
  where it considers that the public needs more
  time to assess the situation.

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Political / propaganda campaigns

• A planned, coordinated, sustained, multi-faceted
  series of messages designed to achieve a
  pragmatic goal by influencing target audiences.