Unit 4: American Political Ideologies and Beliefs

• Public opinion: how people feel about things
  • Pollsters measure public opinion
  • Not uniform - general public care more about political issues that directly affect their regular lives
  • Political issue does not have to interest the majority of the public to be considered important
  • Issue public: a smaller group to which an issue is important

Characteristics of Public Opinion

• Characteristics:
  • Saliency: the degree to which an issue is important to a certain individual/group
  • Intensity: how strongly people feel about a particular issue
  • Stability: how much dimensions of public opinion change
• Measured indirectly through elections, but hard to translate
• Referendum submitted to popular vote to accept/reject a legislation, measures public opinion on specific issues
• Public opinion polls measure public opinion most frequently and directly

Polls Measure Public Opinion

• Designed to measure public opinion by asking a smaller group questions
  • Achieved by pollsters through random sampling: allows pollsters to find information representative of the public
  • Benchmark polls: conducted by a campaign when a candidate initially announces
  • Provide campaign with baseline data to see if chances of winning election improve over time
  • Tracking polls: performed multiple times with the same sample to track changes in opinion
  • Entrance polls: collected on Election Day as voters go to cast their vote
  • Exit polls: conducted at polling places, targeting voting districts that represent the public and poll random voters leaving the place
  • Stratified random sampling: variation of random sampling; population divided into subgroups and weighted based on demographics
  • Questions must be carefully worded (objectively)
  • Polls cannot be 100% accurate
  • Sampling error: how wrong the poll results may be
    • Ex. 60% with a sampling error of 4% would mean the real percentage could be between 56 and 64%
    • More respondents = lower sampling error

Where Does Public Opinion Come From?

• Political socialization: the process by which a person develops political attitudes
  • Factors:
  • Family
    • Most people eventually are of the same political party as their parents
    • Children get moral/ethical values from parents
  • Location
    • Rural areas develop more socially conservative views than cities
  • Religious institutions
  • Mass media
  • Higher education
    • Large change in political beliefs

Political Ideologies

• Ideology: a coherent set of thoughts and beliefs about politics and government
  • Conservative: less government interference; oppose most federal regulations (laissez-faire economics); social conservatives support government involvement in social issues
  • Liberal: more government assistance to help social/economic problems; government regulation of economy; separation of church and state
  • Moderate/independent: no coherent ideology; common sense over philosophical principles
• Americans have fewer ideological groups
• Strongly ideological Americans tend to be more politically active
  • Political activities/organizations
  • Candidates must appeal to more extreme party members in primaries but be more moderate in general elections

Determining Factors in Ideological and Political Behavior

• Factors:
  • Race/ethnicity: groups with lower income are usually more liberal
  • Religion: Jews and Protestants are more liberal; Catholics lean left but are more conservative on social issues; Protestants are more conservative
  • Gender: women tend to be more liberal
  • Income level: higher income Americans tend to be more supportive of liberal goals but more fiscally conservatives; lower income Americans are more conservative on issues except welfare
  • Region: East Coast is more liberal, South is more conservative, West Coast is the most polarized/mixed; cities are more liberal while rural/small towns are conservative

Public Opinion and the Mass Media

• News media
  • News broadcasts on TV, radio, and the Internet
  • Newspapers
  • News magazines
  • Magazine broadcast programs
  • Newsmaker interview programs
  • Websites, blogs, news aggregators, online forums
  • Social media
  • Political talk radio/podcasts
• Media sets the public agenda by choosing stories to cover and which to ignore
• Media provides Americans with exposure to the government + politicians
  • Question motives of government
  • Exposure to news media has increased, more influence over the years
• Media only affects public opinion when it is volatile or news coverage is extensive and mostly positive/negative
  • Most instances it does not have an effect - media covers many stories simultaneously, Americans choose media that enforce their political beliefs
• Social media has become a tool for grassroots political movements

Are News Organizations Biased?

• There is less ideological bias in news than critics claim
  • News media has become less biased throughout American history
  • Most news organizations want to be objective - consumers from both sides of the political spectrum
  • Impossible for news media to be completely objective
  • Simple stories are faster to run and don’t bore consumers
  • Time and space result in bias
  • Especially with TV news programs
    • Must report many stories in limited time
    • Use short sound bites
  • Can be biased by sources of information
  • Reporters who use politicians/government sources must try not to offend their sources and not become too close but demonstrate independence and credibility
  • Reporters are usually more skeptical about politicians’ motives than Americans are
  • Politicians try to influence news coverage
  • Photo ops
  • Press releases
  • plan appearances based on audience demographics

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