Public Opinion

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Public Opinion
Public opinion bears a sort of syntactical internal contradiction:
While public denotes the group and the universal, opinion on its own is typically
associated with the individual and considered a somewhat internal, subjective
formulation
History of Public Opinion
The origins of our modern conception of public opinion are usually traced to
liberal democratic theories of the eighteenth century, with precursors
reaching all the way back to ancient Greece
Aristotle said He who loses the support of the people is a king no longer

In view of a general model of democracy as collective decision making
Collective Decision Making
First is the process of eliciting values, sometimes called the problem stage, which involves
recognizing a matter of collective worry or concern, and then articulating various goals thought to
be important in addressing the issue

phase that involves developing options or proposals for resolving the problem, and sifting these
down into a small set of potentially viable alternatives

decision makers turn to estimating consequences of selecting one over another option, a task that
often falls to technical and policy experts

The fourth stage involves evaluating the alternatives, with advocates of competing options actively
engaged in persuasive appeals aimed at garnering both public and elite support, and the issue
typically receiving broad media attention through news coverage and opinion polling

This public debate ultimately leads to the making of a decision, either through bureaucratic or
governmental action or in some cases by electoral choice
Opinion
Allport posited a definition that involved individuals . . . expressing
themselves [regarding a] condition, person, or proposal of widespread
importance . . . as to give rise to the probability of affecting action . .
toward the object concerned.
This definition assumes that public opinion is an aggregate of
individual opinions
Public
The term public, from the Latin publicus meaning the people, similarly had
several discernable meanings
In some of its earliest uses it referred to common access
In a second usage, public referred to the common interest and common good,
not in the sense of access (or belonging to) but rather in the sense of
representing (that is, in the name of) the whole of the people
Attribute of Public
Urgency
Power Legitimation
The Perspectives
Sociologists tend to be more interested in how social movements and mobilization efforts take
hold and how group identity can influence perceptions

Psychologists devote more time to studying how information gets processed and which
persuasive appeals are more effective

Political scientists study of public opinion can include voting and other forms of political
behavior as well as influences on policy formation.


Communication scholars examine public opinion from a number of different vantage points.
Some examine public opinion as a product (how many people feel a certain way about a given
issue), while others emphasize process-related phenomena (i.e., how opinions are formed)

Public Opinion and Communication
Public Opinion Communication
Case Studies