The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion PDF Author: John Zaller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521407861
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
This 1992 book explains how people acquire political information from elites and the mass media and convert it into political preferences.

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion PDF Author: John Zaller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521407861
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
This 1992 book explains how people acquire political information from elites and the mass media and convert it into political preferences.

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion PDF Author: John R. Zaller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139642979
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
In this 1992 book John Zaller develops a comprehensive theory to explain how people acquire political information from elites and the mass media and convert it into political preferences. Using numerous specific examples, Zaller applies this theory to the dynamics of public opinion on a broad range of subjects, including domestic and foreign policy, trust in government, racial equality, and presidential approval, as well as voting behaviour in U.S. House, Senate, and presidential elections. The thoery is constructed from four basic premises. The first is that individuals differ substantially in their attention to politics and therefore in their exposure to elite sources of political information. The second is that people react critically to political communication only to the extent that they are knowledgeable about political affairs. The third is that people rarely have fixed attitudes on specific issues; rather, they construct 'preference statements' on the fly as they confront each issue raised. The fourth is that, in constructing these statements, people make the greatest use of ideas that are, for various reasons, the most immediately salient to them. Zaller emphasizes the role of political elites in establishing the terms of political discourse in the mass media and the powerful effect of this framing of issues on the dynamics of mass opinion on any given issue over time.

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion Reconsidered

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion Reconsidered PDF Author: Jeffrey Friedman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317661184
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
In the Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (1992), John Zaller set out one of the most influential models of opinion formation: he presented the public as a pliable instrument of political elites, who are able to garner support simply by sending "cues" through the mass media telling Republicans or Democrats, for example, what "the" Republican or Democratic position is on a given issue. Contributors to this volume critically examine Zaller’s model and its implications, empirical and normative. The introduction contrasts two different strands in Zaller’s book, one of which confines the impact of media messages to politicians’ cues, the other of which emphasizes the impact of journalists’ interpretive frames. Other chapters examine whether elite domination of public opinion is desirable and assess how well Zaller’s model has withstood two decades of research. Zaller himself contributes a long retrospective in which he modifies some claims, defends others, and sets out a bold new research agenda. This book was published as a special issue of Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society.

What Americans Know about Politics and why it Matters

What Americans Know about Politics and why it Matters PDF Author: Michael X. Delli Carpini
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300072754
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
The authors explore how Americans' levels of political knowledge have changed over the past 50 years, how such knowledge is distributed among different groups, and how it is used in political decision-making. Drawing on extensive survey data, they present compelling evidence for benefits of a politically informed citizenry--and the cost of one that is poorly and inequitably informed. 62 illustrations.

Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory

Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory PDF Author: Donald Green
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300187084
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
This is the first comprehensive critical evaluation of the use of rational choice theory in political science. Writing in an accessible and nontechnical style, Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro assess rational choice theory where it is reputed to be most successful: the study of collective action, the behavior of political parties and politicians, and such phenomena as voting cycles and Prisoner's Dilemmas. In their hard-hitting critique, Green and Shapiro demonstrate that the much heralded achievements of rational choice theory are in fact deeply suspect and that fundamental rethinking is needed if rational choice theorists are to contribute to the understanding of politics. In their final chapters, they anticipate and respond to a variety of possible rational choice responses to their arguments, thereby initiating a dialogue that is bound to continue for some time.

The Rational Public

The Rational Public PDF Author: Benjamin I. Page
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226644804
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 507

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Book Description
This monumental study is a comprehensive critical survey of the policy preferences of the American public, and will be the definitive work on American public opinion for some time to come. Drawing on an enormous body of public opinion data, Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro provide the richest available portrait of the political views of Americans, from the 1930's to 1990. They not only cover all types of domestic and foreign policy issues, but also consider how opinions vary by age, gender, race, region, and the like. The authors unequivocally demonstrate that, notwithstanding fluctuations in the opinions of individuals, collective public opinion is remarkably coherent: it reflects a stable system of values shared by the majority of Americans and it responds sensitively to new events, arguments, and information reported in the mass media. While documenting some alarming case of manipulation, Page and Shapiro solidly establish the soundness and value of collective political opinion. The Rational Public provides a wealth of information about what we as a nation have wanted from government, how we have changed our minds over the years, and why. For anyone interested in the short- and long-term trends in Americans' policy preferences, or eager to learn what Americans have thought about issues ranging from racial equality to the MX missile, welfare to abortion, this book offers by far the most sophisticated and detailed treatment available.

Voice and Equality

Voice and Equality PDF Author: Sidney Verba
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674942936
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 668

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Book Description
This book confirms the idea put forth by Tocqueville that American democracy is rooted in civic voluntarism—citizens’ involvement in family, work, school, and religion, as well as in their political participation as voters, campaigners, protesters, or community activists. The authors analyze civic activity with a massive survey of 15,000 people.

Public Opinion

Public Opinion PDF Author: Walter Lippmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Public opinion
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description


Tides of Consent

Tides of Consent PDF Author: James A. Stimson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107108179
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Tracking trends in American public opinion, this study examines moods of public policy over time. It argues that public opinion is decisive in American politics and identifies the citizens who produce influential change as a relatively small subset of the American electorate.

The News and Public Opinion

The News and Public Opinion PDF Author: Maxwell McCombs
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745645194
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The daily news plays a major role in the continuously changing mix of thoughts, feelings and behavior that defines public opinion. The News & Public Opinion details these effects of the news media on the sequence of outcomes that collectively shape public opinion, beginning with initial attention to the various news media and their contents and extending to the effects of this exposure on the acquisition of information, formation of attitudes and opinions and to the consequences of all these elements for participation in public life. Sometimes called the hierarchy of media effects, this sequence of outcomes describes the communication process involved in the formation of public opinion. Although the media landscape is undergoing rapid change, key elements remain the same, and The News & Public Opinion emphasizes these basic principles of communication established over decades of empirical social science investigations into the impact of mass communication on public opinion. The primary audience for this book is students, both advanced undergraduates and graduate students, as well as members of the general public who want to understand the role of the news media in our civic life.