1. Public Opinion What is “public opinion”?
Definition? Aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs shared by some portion of the population
Public opinion is distributed among several diff positions and distribution of position tells us how divided public is on an issue and whether compromise is possible. When a large proportion of the American public appears to express the same view on an issue, a consensus exists, at least at the moment the poll was taken. Figure 6-1 on how important college is. Divisive opinion = issues on which public holds widely differing attitudes. Nonopinion – when americans either nave no information about an issue or are not interested enough to formulate a position

2. Defining Public Opinion
What are the 3 types of public opinion as described in book?
When a large proportion of the American public appears to express the same view on an issue, a consensus exists, at least at the moment the poll was takenDivisive opinion = issues on which public holds widely differing attitudes. Nonopinion – when americans either nave no information about an issue or are not interested enough to formulate a position

3. How public opinion is formed: Political Socialization
What is political socialization?
Process by which people acquire political beliefs and attitudes
How do people acquire political attitudes and beliefs?
People acquire political attitudes, including party identification, through relationships with family, peers and coworkers.
PS = process by which people acquire political beliefs and attitudes
Scholars long believed most important sources of political socialization are found in the family and in schools. Children learn their parents views on politics and political leaders through observation and approval seeking. When parents are strong supporters of a political party children are very likely to identify with same party (use example of sports team, or taylor swift) or if parents apolitical or uninvolved children likely to be the same
Other researchers claim political attitudes are more influenced by genetics that by parental or environmental socialization,
Exposure of young americans to many sources of ideas may also underlie more progressive views on immigration and gay rights (use example of how students felt about gay marriage compared to other generations, and how student said their generation more informed bc they have access to info)

4. Sources of Political Socialization
Family – AP TIP!!
Education
Peers and Peer Group
Opinion Leaders
Media
Political Events
Complete graphic organizer and explain how each of the following effect political views and beliefs
Parents’ political attitudes and actions affect our opinions and links us to other factors such as race, social class, educational environment and religious beliefs
Studies suggest parents influence children bc of communication and children have strong desire for parental approval, very receptive to parents’ views
Second chance socialization – when children expose parents to new ideas, or new media like twitter, facebook etc, demographics of facebook show a 25 percent decline in use among 13-17year olds coupled with significant increases in 55 and up agegroup
Education -- Pic of pledge of allegiance
Purpose of education, history of education to educate citizens so they could vote
Children in primary grades learn about American in patriotic ways, learn democratic procedures like taking a vote and majority wins,
More formal education someone receives more likely they are to be interested in politics
Peer groups -- Have to separate the effects of peer group pressure on opnions and attitudes in general from the effects of peer group pressure on political opinions, for most part associations among peer groups are nonpolitical, political attitudes are more likely to be shagged by peer groups when peer groups are involved directly in political activities, if you join group based on interest of passion for environment morel likely to be influenced by your organizational peers than you are your classmates
Opinion leaders -- We are all influenced by friends, family members and other relatives and teachers, these people are opinion leaders but on an informal level, their influence is not necessarily intentional or deliberate, when Obama announced his position on gay marriage, a similar positive change in public opinion among African americans was detected by pollsters, we are also influenced by formal opinion leaders, like presidents, lobbyists congresspersons, media figures, and religious leaders who have as part of their job the task of shaping people’s views,
Example how Hillary Clinton focuses on women’s issues and rights, politicians acting as opinion leaders hope to define the political agenda in such a way that discussions about policy options will take place on their terms
See pg 209 and opinon about America with war in Iraq – can ask should US keep world opinion in mind when making decisions?

5. Impact of the Media
How does media impact and influence public opinion?
Informs public about issues and events – agenda sets
Provides forum for political leaders
How has technology and changes in media affected political socialization and influence media has on public opinion?
Media strongly influences public opinion, media inform the public about issues and events and thus have an agenda-setting effect
Bernard Cohen said May not be able to tell americans what to think but really good at telling americans what to think about
John steward mocked CNN for overtop conspiracy laced coverage of events in news like disappearance of Malaysia airlines flight 370 in spring 2014 (check for clip)
Ask – in what ways does media provide forum for leaders and public candidates? Presidential visits abroad, campaigns and officeholders to gain support for policies,
Managed news = information generated and distributed by govt in such a way as to give government interests in priority over candor, GW firm believer, although acknowledging public had right to be informed he believed some matters should be kept secret and that news that ight damage the image of the US should be censored and not published,
Some today argue that media influence on public opinion has grown to equal family influence, in a study HS students said they obtain info from mass media more than friends, fam and teachers,

6. Political Preferences and Voting Behavior
Elections: The Most Important Influences
Party Identification
Perception of the Candidates
Issue Preferences
Various Socioeconomic and demographic factors influence political preferences

7. Influences on Political Preferences and Voting Behavior
What are socioeconomic and demographic factors?
How do they influence political preference?
Education?
Economic Status?
Religious Influence? Religiosity? Evangelicalism?
Race & Ethnicity?
Gender? What is Gender Gap and what are causes of it?
Geography?
Various socioeconomic and demographic factors appear to influence political preference, including education, income and socioeconomic status, religion, race, gender, geographic region and similar traits, (socioeconomic status = value assigned to a person due to occupation or income, an upper class person has high SE status)
People who share same religion, occupation or any other demographic trait are likely to influence one another and may also have common political concerns that follow fro the common characteristic, other factors such as party identification, perception of the candidates and issue preferences are closely connected to the electoral process
Demographic influences reflect individual’s personal background and place in society, some factors have to do with family person born into an, race or religion others may be result of choices made throughout person’s life – place of residence, educational achievement and occupation, many of these factors are interrelated, people who have higer education are more likely to have higher incomes and to hold professional jobs
Education: in past higher education use to vote republican, now more voting dem, and higher number of blue collar workers voted republican use to vote dem, in 2012 voters with college degree slightly favored Romney (51 to 47%), Obama had large support by those with high school education or less
Economic status – low income tend to favor govt action to benefit the poor and promote economic equality, historically voters in union households voted democratic, high income tend to oppose govt intervention in economy or support it only when benefits business, (see chapter 1, rich trend toward right poor trend toward left); research indicates realignment is occurring and professionals vote democratic while small business owners and corporate execs tend to vote republican.
Staunch republicans = conservative economic and social; main street republicans = less conservative; solid liberals – oppose staunch repubs and white; new coalition dems = equal number of whites, blacks and Hispanics and hard pressed democrats = highly religious and more socially conservative than solid liberals. (pg 215 for liberatarians, Post Moderns and Disaffecteds)
Religious influence = use to be could break down by denomination but must less valuable for predicting political preferences, jewish voters use to more liberal on social and economic views, and tend to be liberal today, persons with no religion likely to be liberal on social issues but mixed economic views. Historically northern protestans more likely to vote republican and northern catholics democratic – nearly all religious groups moved toward the dem candidate Obama, but 79 percent of born again Christians supported Romney, re-read this pg 215
Religiousity – intensity in practice or beliefs, voters who are devout tend to vote republican, less devout = more often democrats, exception to this trend is that African americans with all religious backgrounds have been and continue to be strongly supportive of Democrats

8. Life Cycle & Generational Effect
Older Americans more conservative than younger americans – particularly on social issues and to some extent economic issues
When events produce a long lasting result we refer to it as a generational effect – long lasting effect of the events of a particular time on the political opinions of those who came of political age at that time – example is 9-11 influences how we think about terrorism prevention and security measures etc
Example also 1960s and Vietnam

9. Political Culture
How people feel about politics

10. Political Efficacy
People’s belief that they can influence government and policies

11. Trust in government SOURCE: Gallup Polls; Percent who answered “
Always ” or
Most of the
time
to the question,
Do you trust the government in Washington to do
what is right?

12. Mean Percentage of Citizens Voting in Legislative Elections, 1945-2002

13. Age and Political Participation, 199610 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
100
18-25
26-35
36-50
51-65 66
&
older
Age
Voted in 1996
Persuaded
others
Wore
button or
bumper
sticker
Attended
campaign
rallies
Worked
for
party/candidate
Contributed money
SOURCE: American National Election Studies

14. Reasons for Changes in Political Socialization over Time
Less Americans associate with either of the two main parties
Divided government occurs often
Rise in political cynicism and disaffection
People voting less and less

15. Characteristics of a valid, scientific public opinion poll
Randomized sample
Representative sample
Question wording (unbiased, unambiguous)
Large sample size/low margin of error
What is the history of opinion polls?
Why and how was the Literary Digest poll of 1936 and the Gallup Poll of 1948 flawed? What lessons about polling were learned from these two polling mistakes?
The scientific measuring public opinion is a fairly recent phenomenon. While straw polling dates back to the early 1820s, its practice was hardly scientific and remained fairly localized in scope. The first real attempt at national polling came from the Literary Digest, who in 1916 began to send out postcards to its readers to their opinions. But this venture was hardly scientific and its results were quite skewed, leading to misleading conclusions. In 1936, Literary Digest predicted, based on its returned postcards, President Franklin Roosevelt would lose in a landslide to his Republic opponent, Alf Landon. The complete opposite happened. This polling fiasco reinforced the need for a more scientific approach to polling if public opinion was to be gauged accurately. George Gallup was engaged also during the Great Depression, and he was devising better, more accurate methods of polling. They were, of course, also flawed and helped lead to the 1948 election disaster that predicted, using quota sampling, Thomas Dewey had defeated President Harry Truman. Again, the polls were wrong. But Gallup would soon learn from his mistakes and help develop more scientifically accurate method of polling through random sampling. Today, using many of Gallup's refined methods, over 1,000 polling organizations attempt to measure everything from television shows to musical tastes to preferences in soft drinks. Some 200 organizations are dedicated to understanding America's political preferences. The best polling in the data-driven era is attained through the aggregation of polls into a meta-data format. For example, combining the results of several polls from different organizations and correcting for previous outcomes provides some of the most accurate predictions. One of the key pioneers in this field is Nate Silver who started as a baseball statistician and is now one of the most energizing talents in the world of polling. Take a few minutes to read his predictions about the next Senate.

16. Measuring Public Opinion
Sampling Techniques
Representative sampling: sample representative of voters in population
The most important principle in sampling, or poll taking, is randomness. Every person should have a known chance, and especially an equal chance, of being sampled.
The best polling in the data-driven era is attained through the aggregation of polls into a meta-data format. For example, combining the results of several polls from different organizations and correcting for previous outcomes provides some of the most accurate predictions. One of the key pioneers in this field is Nate Silver who started as a baseball statistician and is now one of the most energizing talents in the world of polling. Take a few minutes to read his predictions about the next Senate.
If we want 2000 voters to tell us what tens of millions will do we must have a sample of individuals that will be representative of all voters in the population. Various techniques to try and achieve randomness – random selection of phone numbers but this has caused problems with increase use of cell phones, many people who don’t have home phone number so sample may not be respresentative, increases the risk of coverage error – or bias introduced when some portion of the population is not covered by the sample, also now majority of homes have caller id so many people not participating,

17. Measuring Public Opinion: Problems with Polls
What problems can be created by public opinion polls?
Problems with Polls
Telephone polling problems
Sampling Error
Polling Questions
Push Polls
Pic of cell phone, pic of dewey defeats Truman
Sampling Errors: diff btwn a sample’s results and the true results if the entire population had been interviewed
Ie sample would be biased if poll interviewed people by telephone and did not correct for the fact that more women than men answer the phone and that some populations (college students) cannot be found so easily by phone
As pollsters get close to election day they become even more concerned about their sample of respondents
Poll Questions
Results depend on questions ask, yes/no questions can be a problem if answers are more complex (ie do you favor or oppose war in Iraq, maybe they supported in beginning but changed their mind)
Push Polls
Give respondents misleading information in questions to persuade them to vote against a candidate (do you approve of congressmen X who raised your taxes 22 times)
In SC voters were asked if they would be more likely or less to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child
In 2008 Jewish voters were given info linking Obama to Palestine Liberation Organization

18. Types of Polling
Random Sampling: everyone has equal chance of being chosen
Systematic Sampling: Choose from list at fixed interval (every 10 people on the list)
Stratified Sampling: Choose from specific groups (all girls)
not individuals) are chosen at random (from all classes in the school)

19. Measuring Public Opinion

20. Measuring Public Opinion

21. Public Opinion & Policymaking
Public opinion hard to discern depending on the issue
Americans tend to turn to govt to solve problems
Govt policy tends to follow public opinion
Examples of changes in public opinion and resulting policy?
How does public opinion limit government?
Can restrain govt from taking truly unpopular actions
Political Culture and Public Opinion
Americans tend to turn to government to solve public problems.
Government policy tends to follow public opinion.
Public opinion can also limit government action.
Sometimes public officials have hard time discerning public’s opinion, tea party protests example, rallies began in early 2009 to protest TARP Troubled Asset Relief Program and bailout bill passed by congress. Protestors dressed as Patriots and held anti-tax slogan posters, used internet to call for Tea Party meetings and protests, demonstrated against health care reform and increased govt spending, coalition of a disparate groups acting under a single name is not for or against any single policy or pgroam, but rather expression of negative opinion directed at incumbents of both parties, so diff to respond to
Are policymakers really responsive to public opinion? Research demonstrates when public supports a policy change, policy changes in direction consistent with change in public opinion – use example of SC cases and gay marriage – DOMA passed during Clinton
Public opinion serves to limit govt - ie abortion most are moderate don’t want abortion as birth control but do feel it should be available, yet sizable groups express intense feelings for/against legalized abortion, given distribution of opinion most officials would rather not try to change policy to favor either extreme position, in this case public opinion doesn’t make public policy, rather it restrains officials from taking truly unpopular actions, in this sense public opinion plays very important role in American system,

22. How does public opinion influence voting decisions of members of Congress?
Strong public opinion expressed in polling results =
Desire of Congressmen to get re- elected
Congressmen perceived obligation/duty to represent their constituents
Competitive re-elections =
Desire to get re-elected, if opponent responds to polls, offers what public wants, threatens re- election
Public opinion polls are a way to link the public with elected officials. Members of Congress often use polls to understand the views of their constituents, but they must also pay attention to other political considerations.

23. How is Congress’ voting decisions limited despite public opinion?
Legislators’ voting records =
Legislators want to avoid being perceived as indecisive by voters/supporters – don’t want to perceived as changing like the wind
Party leadership =
Legislators avoid the risk of losing party support
Or legislators may ignore public opinion to gain party support

24. Public Opinion and the Political Process

25. Trust in government SOURCE: Gallup Polls; Percent who answered “
Always ” or
Most of the
time
to the question,
Do you trust the government in Washington to do
what is right?

26. Political Culture
How people feel about politics

27. Political Efficacy
People’s belief that they can influence government and policies

28. Age and Political Participation, 199610 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
100
18-25
26-35
36-50
51-65 66
&
older
Age
Voted in 1996
Persuaded
others
Wore
button or
bumper
sticker
Attended
campaign
rallies
Worked
for
party/candidate
Contributed money
SOURCE: American National Election Studies

29. Mean Percentage of Citizens Voting in Legislative Elections, 1945-2002

30. Web Links
Polling Report : An up-to-date and easy-to-use Web site that offers polls and their results organized by topic:
Real Clear Politics (RCP): Daily digest of poll results, election analysis, and political commentary as well as an archive of past political polls:

31. Political Preferences and Voting Behavior

32. Measuring Public Opinion
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