Public Opinion 1

Public Opinion

a latent concept

the aggregation of views of private citizens

the term public has some definition by the publisher

new issues tend to be more volatile

Priming

giving a respondent some stimulus that impacts their subsequent response

Issue Framing

a kind of priming that defines what an issue is about

Types of Opinion

Performance Assessments: do you approve or disapprove of this politician’s job so far

Sentiment: how do you feel about this politician on a scale of 0-100

Preferences: who are you going to vote for

Liberal

“progress”

interventionist

social welfare state

policies to support women, racial/ethnic/sexual minorities

Conservative

“status quo”

limited government

market forces, anti-regulation

identity-neutral policies

New Conservative

“return”

interventionist

protectionist

Who tends to have more Political Knowledge

higher income

higher age

higher education

white

these voters use a surplus of time and resources to pay attention

Elite Cueing

when voters don’t know or are ambivalent, they’re influenced by elites they trust

Public Opinion is irrational

transitivity violations: a>b and b>c therefore a>c but actually respond a<c

inconsistency

Structure in Public Opinion

some attitudes predict others: attitudes about immigration, crime, education, etc. tend to be correlated

some underlying beliefs predict preferences: views about race tend to predict many preferences about public policy