Mr



Mr. McCormack

American Government

Central Dauphin High School

Chapter Eight

Mass Media and Public Opinion

I. The Formation of Public Opinion

A. Public opinion is the complex collection of the opinions of many people

1. Political scientists struggle to aggregate millions of distinct, private opinions

2. Measuring public opinion with accuracy can be extremely difficult

B. Defining “Public Opinion”

1. Discussing “public opinion” ignores the fact that there are many different publics in America

a. Most people are familiar with surveys that identify groups based on race, sex, or religion

b. In fact, every group of people that shares a specific opinion may be considered a “public” on that issue

i. Very few issues will generate opinions in EVERYONE in a society

ii. Most issues are important to only a minority of the population

2. Public opinion properly refers only to those issues that relate to public policy and politics

3. Formal Definition of Public Opinion

a. Attitudes or Ideas

b. Held be a significant number of people

c. Relating to government and politics

d. That have been expressed in some way (i.e. votes, protests, etc.)

4. The Political Spectrum – A visual representation of the range of political opinion

a. People who share similar opinions on political issues can be grouped together and labeled

b. Radical

i. Left-most group on the spectrum

ii. Favors extreme change to create entirely new social system

iii. Communists are a good example of a radical group

c. Liberal

i. Middle-left group on the spectrum

ii. Favors government action to correct “unfair” economic or political conditions

iii. Democrats are a good example of a liberal group

d. Moderate

i. Center group on the spectrum

ii. Holds some beliefs of both liberals and conservatives

iii. Both Republicans and Democrats compete for the loyalty of this group

e. Conservative

i. Middle-right group on the spectrum

ii. Seeks to preserve the fundamentals of the social, economic, and political structure

iii. Republicans are a good example of a conservative group

f. Reactionary

i. Right-most group on the spectrum

ii. Favors extreme changes to restore society to an earlier, superior state

iii. Fascists are a good example of a reactionary group

C. Sources of Opinions

1. Political opinions are shaped and formed through life experience, not genetics

2. An infinite group of factors (including age, race, income, occupation, residence, group affiliations, and more) can help to shape a person’s political beliefs

3. Family - possibly the most important factor

a. Children tend to adopt the political opinions of their parents, grandparents, and older siblings

b. While children may not acquire sophisticated ideas, they do absorb basic ideas

i. Regard for authority

ii. Attitudes toward property

iii. Attention to race or religion

4. Education

a. Children first become regularly involved in activities outside the home when they go to school

b. Schools attempt to teach children the values of the American political system

i. Students participate in patriotic observances such as the pledge of allegiance

ii. Students may learn directly about representative government through student council

iii. Students take courses on government and citizenship

5. Other personal factors

a. Wealth

i. The very wealthy and the very poor tend to be the most liberal

ii. The middle class tends to be more conservative

b. Race

i. The majority tends to be more conservative

ii. The minority tends to be more liberal

c. Religion

i. Observant churchgoers of all types, and especially evangelical Protestants, tend to be more conservative

ii. Less religious people and Jews tend to be more liberal

d. Gender

i. Women tend to be more liberal

ii. Men tend to be more conservative

6. Mass Media

a. Mass media include those means of communication that reach large, widely dispersed audiences simultaneously

i. Television

ii. Radio

iii. Newspapers

iv. Magazines

v. Internet

7. Peer Groups

a. Peer groups are composed of those with whom you purposely associate as equals

i. Examples include friends, classmates, neighbors, and co-workers

ii. Most people form other associations, but whenever one part is perceived as superior (boss) or inferior (employee), they do not count as peers

b. Peer groups tend to think alike and reinforce one another’s beliefs

c. Disagreements usually weaken or dissolve the association

8. Opinion Leaders

a. An opinion leader is anyone who has a particularly strong influence on others’ beliefs

b. Opinion leaders may acquire their influence through personal leadership qualities (charisma) or by virtue of their official position

c. Examples include celebrities (television commentators, etc.), professionals (teachers, ministers, etc.), and public officials (President, Congressmen, etc.)

9. Historic Events

a. Major events can have lasting impacts on the opinions of those who experienced them

b. Whenever these events result in an obvious shift in American politics, they are called “Realignments”

c. One realigning event that has been studied previously was the Great Depression

i. With millions unemployed and starving, many people reevaluated the government’s role in fixing economic problems

ii. This ended an era of conservative (Republican) government and inaugurated an era of liberal (Democratic) government

d. Lesser events may not create a lasting period of dominance but might still change some basic beliefs

i. The experience of the Vietnam War severely damaged Americans’ willingness to endure sustained operations in foreign wars

ii. The experience of Watergate severely damaged Americans’ trust in government

II. Measuring Public Opinion

A. If public policies are to reflect public opinion, politicians need to find accurate methods for measuring that opinion

B. Many questionable methods for measuring public opinion exist

1. Monitoring public expressions

a. Print media – books, pamphlets, newspapers, etc.

b. Broadcast media – radio and television talk shows, internet “blogs,” etc.

c. A flaw of this method is that very vocal minorities may dominate the debate while a “silent majority” is ignored

d. Another flaw with this method is that the media may attempt to mold public opinion more than represent it

2. Holding an election

a. Elections have been called the “only poll that matters” since they decide who will hold power

b. Victorious candidates often claim a mandate (endorsement by a majority of the public) for their campaign proposals

c. One flaw of this method is that voters make their choices for a variety of reasons, and a candidate may win even though a majority did not like his proposals

d. Another flaw of this method is that non-voters may constitute a majority of the population, and their preferences weren’t registered by the election

3. Canvassing interest groups

a. Interest groups claim to represent the desires of large numbers of people

b. A major problem with relying on interest groups is that they may misrepresent the size of their constituencies

c. Another problem with interest groups is that they do not reflect the intensity of their constituencies

4. Relying on personal contacts

a. Elected officials typically come into contact with many of their constituents personally or through letters, emails, and telephone calls

b. The major problem with this method is that one person would have great difficulty in getting a full picture

C. The most accurate method for measuring public opinion relies on statistics and scientific polling

1. An early form of polling, the straw vote, was not very scientific

a. Prior to the 1930s, most polls attempted to gauge public opinion only by asking large numbers of people

b. Unfortunately, even very large samples will often fail to provide a good cross-selection of the population

i. A good demonstration of this flaw occurred in 1936, when a magazine, the Literary Digest, received approximately 2.4 million responses to its presidential poll, and incorrectly predicted a Republican victory

ii. The Literary Digest sample was drawn from automobile registrations and telephone directories, both of which were dominated by wealthier Americans during the Depression

iii. Their huge sample severely underrepresented the poor and working class voters that favored Democrats

c. Straw polls are still popular, but are now used more for entertainment than anything else

2. Scientific polling will use sophisticated methods to guarantee the greatest possible degree of accuracy

a. Scientific polling replaces the quantity of straw vote responses with the quality of its own

b. In the mid-1930s George Gallup and Elmo Roper pioneered scientific polling

c. Today there are more than 1,000 national and regional polling organizations

i. Most of these do commercial work (test marketing products, etc.)

ii. Approximately 200 of these also do political work

iii. Among the best known are the Gallup Poll, Harris Survey, Quinnipiac Poll, and Zogby International

iv. A local Franklin and Marshall professor, G. Terry Madonna, is nationally recognized for his polling data

3. The Polling Process

a. Define the Universe to be surveyed

i. Universe means the whole population the poll aims to measure

ii. Some polls are fairly open (i.e. all Americans)

iii. Some are fairly closed (i.e. all white, single women between the ages of 18 and 25)

b. Construct a sample

i. If the universe is very small (i.e. 25 students in a class), a pollster will attempt to question everyone in it

ii. In most cases, pollsters must select a sample, a representative slice of the whole

iii. For sake of ease, most pollsters select a random sample

1. Also called a probability sample

2. Interview a certain number of randomly selected people in a number of randomly selected places

3. Ensure that each member of the universe has a mathematically equal chance of being included

4. For national polls, a sample size of 1,500 people is considered acceptable (likely to produce results within a small degree of variation, + or – 3%, from the truth)

5. This variation is called the margin of error

To reduce the margin of error from 3% to 1%, the random sample would have to grow to include about 9,500 people

6. Questioning so large a sample is prohibitively expensive

iv. An alternative to random sampling is quota sampling

1. Some pollsters attempt to deliberately construct a sample that mirrors the larger universe (i.e. has the same composition of minorities, religions, etc.)

2. Although this may seem like a better alternative, this method is actually less reliable

c. Prepare valid questions

i. The way a question is asked will influence the way it is answered

ii. Honest pollsters attempt to avoid confusing or emotionally charged words

iii. Less scrupulous pollsters will ask leading questions to produce a desired result

iv. Even less scrupulous pollsters will conduct “push polls” in an effort to change, not just measure, public opinion

d. Select and control how the poll will be taken

i. Pollsters must determine how the questions will be asked (i.e. in person, over the phone, etc.)

ii. Most polls were originally taken face-to-face

1. Interviewing is expensive and full of risks

2. People are more likely to attempt to give the “right” answer in a personal interview

iii. A more recently favored tactic is random digit dialing – calling people at random

1. Questions have been raised about just how “representative” these samples are

2. Many people now rely on cell-phones and don’t have land-lines

3. Many kinds of people (those less frequently home) are going to be underrepresented

e. Analyze and report the findings

i. Polling firms collect huge amounts of raw data

ii. Computers are routinely used to help interpret the results

4. Evaluating Polls

a. Most polls are fairly reliable, but several problems are known to exist

b. Pollsters have difficulty measuring the intensity, stability, and relevance of opinions

i. Intensity – How strong is the opinion?

ii. Stability – How permanent is the opinion?

iii. Relevance – How important is that opinion to the person who holds it?

c. Critics claim that polling creates a “bandwagon” effect – some undecided voters simply decide to support whoever seems to be winning

III. The Mass Media

A. The Role of Mass Media

1. A medium is a means of communication, and media is the plural of medium

2. Mass media are those that reach large, widely dispersed audiences simultaneously

3. The four major mass media in America are television, newspapers, radio, and magazines

4. Lesser media include books, films, audio and videocassettes, and the Internet

5. Mass media are not a part of the government

6. Mass media usually exist primarily for reasons other than influencing the government

7. People acquire most of what they know about the government through the media

B. Television

1. The public use of television has a long history

a. FDR demonstrated TV at the 1939 New York World’s Fair

b. Truman appeared in the first trans-continental television broadcast in 1951

c. Television replaced newspapers as the principle source of political information in the 1960s

2. Measuring television consumption

a. According to the Census, 98% of the nation’s households have at least one TV

b. More American homes have television than have indoor plumbing

c. Forty million homes have two or more TVs

d. Most TVs are on for at least seven hours a day

e. Americans collectively watch more than one billion hours of TV each day

f. By the time the typical American graduates from high school, he has spent 14,000 hours watching television (and only 11,000 hours in class!)

3. Measuring television’s reach

a. There are more than 1,700 television stations in America

i. 1,400 private (commercial) stations

ii. 300 public television stations

b. Three major networks have historically dominated the television market

i. NBC (National Broadcasting Company)

ii. CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System)

iii. ABC (American Broadcasting Company)

iv. These networks provide about 90% of the programming for about half of the stations

v. These networks’ productions account for 45% of all television viewing

c. New sources of television programming are increasingly important

i. New broadcasting groups like Fox Network are very popular

ii. Nearly 75% of the nation’s households also receive cable systems

4. Television is the most powerful medium in America

C. Newspapers

1. The history of newspapers

a. The oldest newspaper, the Acta Diurna, was published in Rome in 59 B.C.

b. Another early newspaper was Beijing’s Tsing Pao, published from 618 AD until 1911

c. The first regularly published newspaper in America, the Boston News-Letter, appeared in 1704

d. By 1775, 37 newspapers were being published in the colonies

e. The first newspaper to be published daily, the Pennsylvania Evening Post and Daily Advertiser, appeared in 1783

f. Newspapers played an important role in fostering the Revolution

2. Today there are more than 10,000 newspapers published in the United States

a. 1,450 dailies

b. 7,200 weeklies

c. 320 semi-weeklies

d. Several hundred foreign language papers

e. All American papers have a combined circulation of around 150 million copies per issue

f. About 45% of the nation’s adult population read a newspaper every day

g. The average person who reads newspapers spends a half hour doing so per day

h. Many factors have contributed to a decline in newspaper readership since the 1920s

i. Increasing competition from television, radio, and the internet

ii. Market competition has led to more paper consolidation (competing dailies now appear in fewer than 50 cities)

i. Most newspapers are local papers (circulation is limited to a small region)

j. Important national papers exist and influence the local papers

i. New York Times

ii. Washington Post

iii. Chicago Tribune

iv. Wall Street Journal

v. USA Today

1. Largest circulation of any American paper, about 2.1 million copies per day

2. Does not publish on weekends or holidays

vi. Los Angeles Times

vii. Christian Science Monitor

3. Newspapers fill an important role in educating the public

a. Newspapers cover stories in greater depth than television does

b. Newspapers usually provide various points of view in their editorial sections

4. The freedom of the press was included in the first amendment to the Constitution in 1791

D. Radio

1. The history of radio

a. Radio as we know it began on November 2, 1920 when KDKA began broadcasting in Pittsburgh, PA

b. By 1927 there were more than 7 million radios in America

c. In that same year there were 733 commercial broadcasting stations

d. National networks grew up about that time

i. 1926 – NBC

ii. 1927 – CBS

iii. 1934 – Mutual Broadcasting System

iv. 1943 – ABC

e. Radio was the television of the 1930s

f. FDR, in his famous “fireside chats,” was the first major public official to communicate effectively over the radio

2. Radio today

a. Radios remain important because they are more portable than televisions

b. There are more than 10,000 stations on the AM and FM dials

c. The average American hears 20 hours of radio programming each week

d. Some stations specialize in the news format, but most spend little time on news

e. Many stations cater to minority populations

f. National Public Radio includes more than 700 stations

g. Talk radio has become an important component in political debate

i. Rush Limbaugh is the most popular broadcaster in radio today

ii. Other nationally syndicated personalities include Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Michael Savage

iii. Many local stations produce their own talk shows

iv. There are more conservative than liberal talk show hosts

1. Liberals decided to counter that fact by producing Air America

2. Air America was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2006

E. Magazines

1. The history of magazines

a. Benjamin Franklin published General Magazine, one of the first American magazines, in Philadelphia in 1741

b. Most magazines have been literary or social in nature

c. The first political magazines appeared in the mid-1800s

i. Harper’s Weekly

ii. Atlantic Monthly

d. Opinion journals became more numerous in the early 1900s

i. Muckrakers exposed wrongdoings in politics, business, and industry

ii. Muckrakers earned the name from Teddy Roosevelt, who likened their tactics to raking through the muck

iii. Muckrakers set the pattern for today’s investigative journalists

2. Some 12,000 magazines are published in the United States today

a. Many are trade publications (i.e. Veterinary Forum)

b. Others appeal only to special personal interests (i.e. Golf Digest)

c. The most popular magazines average 10 to 20 million copies per issue

i. Reader’s Digest

ii. National Geographic

iii. AARP the Magazine

d. Three news magazines have a combined circulation of 10 million copies

i. Time

ii. Newsweek

iii. U.S. News & World Report

F. The Media and Politics

1. The media plays two significant roles in American politics

2. Setting the public agenda

i. The media help focus national attention on particular issues

ii. Editors determine what stories get covered, how they get covered, etc.

iii. The manner of coverage can also influence the popular reaction to the news

iv. Stephen Hess identified the most influential news media as part of the “inner ring” of influence in Washington, D.C.

3. Changing electoral politics

i. Television has made candidates far less dependent on party organizations for publicity

ii. Candidates attempt to manipulate media coverage to present the best possible image

iii. Candidates tailor their messages to communicate more effectively in our media (“sound bites”)

4. Limits on Media Influence

i. Several factors limit the media’s influence

ii. Only a small portion of the voting public absorbs what the media says about an election

iii. Most of the people who pay attention to politics select media that presents generally agreeable messages (fewer liberals watch Fox News, fewer conservative read The New York Times, etc.)

iv. People are more likely to use the media for entertainment (sports, etc.) than for detailed political reading

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