Author | John Zaller |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Publication date | 1992-08-28 |
Pages | 381 |
ISBN | 978-0-521-40786-1 |
OCLC | 25050973 |
303.3/8 20 | |
LC Class | HM261 .Z35 1992 |
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion is a 1992 non-fiction book by political scientist John Zaller that examines the processes by which individuals form and express political opinions and the implications this has for public opinion research. The book has been called "the single most important book on public opinion since V. O. Key's 1961 classic, Public Opinion and American Democracy." [1]
Zaller argues that public opinion is heavily influenced by exposure to elite discourse on political matters. He attributes variation in political attitudes between individuals to individual-level differences in receptivity to this discourse, in terms of political awareness (i.e., does an individual receive political messages from elites?) and concordance with prior beliefs (i.e., do the messages received conform to an individual’s basic political values?).
By rejecting the notion that voters hold single preferences (or, in fact, that individuals possess structured belief systems from which they can derive policy preferences), the book challenges the usefulness of public opinion surveys. Zaller’s argument as to how individuals form survey responses is effectively summarized by his "Receive-Accept-Sample" (RAS) model, according to which the opinions individuals express reflect the messages they have received (contingent on the degree of political awareness), accepted (contingent on consistency with prior beliefs), and sampled from (contingent on what issues hold priority at that moment).
Politically more aware individuals are more likely to pick up ("receive") elite messages. They are also, due to their exposure to multiple and often conflicting messages, less likely to accept messages that are inconsistent with their prior attitudes (i.e., they are more selective). Less aware individuals receive fewer messages, but are more likely to accept them (even if they are conflicting). Thus, Zaller argues, there is a positive correlation between political awareness and the consistency and stability of political opinions.
Following the RAS model, political opinion surveys are not valid measures of public opinion as they do not measure an individual’s "true preferences" or capture an individual's pre-existing opinions (as Zaller argues they don't pre-exist firmly for most people), but instead the balance of considerations that are most salient to the surveyee at that particular instant. In Zaller’s words, "most of what gets measured as public opinion does not exist except in the presence of a pollster". [2]
In a subsequent article, Zaller backtracks from his argument in The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion and maintains that the influence elites exercise over public opinion is less than he had originally claimed. He writes: [3]
However poorly informed, psychologically driven, and "mass-mediated" public opinion may be, it is capable of recognizing and focusing on its own conception of what matters.
The first three chapters of the book lay out the theoretical framework of Zaller's "Receive-Accept-Sample" (RAS) model.[ citation needed ]
Ch1. Introduction: The fragmented state of opinion research
The book's objective is to explain how individuals process information to formulate their opinion. It also aims to propose a model that helps generalize and simplify the then fragmented field of public opinion.
Zaller's RAS model is grounded in four key points about how people respond to public opinion surveys.
Ch2. Information, predispositions, and opinion
What is the nature of the information the public receives? Zaller argues that people receive, be it directly or indirectly, political information from elites. The elites frame current events using already available stereotypes to engage with the public. Information disseminated to the public is an elite discourse and is hardly neutral. While the elite discourse shapes public opinion, it does not dictates it solely.
What are the other factors shaping public opinion?
What are the problems with surveys that researchers use for measuring public opinion?
What do these two survey problems suggest?
These problems are indicators that respondents don't necessarily bring their pre-existing opinions to the table because for many they don't even have one in the first place. The response they offer is a "temporary construction" of their opinions, which Zaller calls them "opinion statements". These statements are constructed based on frames which are made most available to them at the time. This view also explains over time instability. The instability is due to changes in the most salient frames among the elite discourse. Therefore, the model Zaller proposes argues that people respond to a question by averaging a non-random sample of frames.
Ch3. How citizens acquire information and convert it into public opinion
Zaller starts with defining "considerations" and "political messages".
"Considerations" are reasons for one to be for or against an issue. It takes into account of cognition and affect.
There are two types of "political messages".
Zaller introduces four axioms that form the foundation of the RAS model.
Zaller sums these four axioms up in his "Receive-Accept-Sample" (RAS) model. To form an "opinion statement", people receive information on an issue, decide to accept it or not, and to sample considerations they could retrieve at the moment.
Public opinion, or popular opinion, is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. The term originates from France, and first appeared in the 17th century, though writers had identified the importance of the opinion of the people long before this. Prior to the advent of mass media, public fora such as coffee houses and gentlemen's clubs were used as exchanges of opinion and some reputable locations had great influence.
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals. A person who conducts polls is referred to as a pollster.
The two-step flow of communication model says that most people form their opinions under the influence of opinion leaders, who in turn are influenced by the mass media. In contrast to the one-step flow of the hypodermic needle model or magic bullet theory, which holds that people are directly influenced by mass media, according to the two-step flow model, ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population. Opinion leaders pass on their own interpretation of information in addition to the actual media content.
Agenda setting describes the "ability to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda". The theory suggests that the media has the ability to shape public opinion by determining what issues are given the most attention, and has been widely studied and applied to various forms of media. The study of agenda-setting describes the way media attempts to influence viewers, and establish a hierarchy of news prevalence. Nations judged to be endowed with more political power receive higher media exposure. The agenda-setting by media is driven by the media's bias on things such as politics, economy and culture, etc. The evolution of agenda-setting and laissez-faire components of communication research encouraged a fast pace growth and expansion of these perspectives. Agenda-setting has phases that need to be in a specific order in order for it to succeed.
The spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. It states that an individual's perception of the distribution of public opinion influences that individual's willingness to express his own opinions, which in turn affects the perceptions and, ultimately, willingness of others to express their opinions. The main idea is that people influence one another's willingness to express opinions through social interaction. According to the spiral of silence theory, individuals will be more confident and outward with their opinion when they notice that their personal opinion is shared throughout a group. But if the individual notices that his opinion is unpopular with the group he will be more inclined to be reserved and remain silent. In other words, from the individual's perspective, "not isolating himself is more important than his own judgement", meaning his perception of how others in the group perceive him is more important to himself than the need for his opinion to be heard.
The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning the people as a whole." Such a discussion is called public debate and is defined as the expression of views on matters that are of concern to the public—often, but not always, with opposing or diverging views being expressed by participants in the discussion. Public debate takes place mostly through the mass media, but also at meetings or through social media, academic publications and government policy documents.
Political polarization is the divergence of political attitudes away from the center, towards ideological extremes.
Media democracy is a democratic approach to media studies that advocates for the reform of mass media to strengthen public service broadcasting and develop participation in alternative media and citizen journalism in order to create a mass media system that informs and empowers all members of society and enhances democratic values.
Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large population segments. It utilizes various forms of media as technology has made the dissemination of information more efficient. Primary examples of platforms utilized and examined include journalism and advertising. Mass communication, unlike interpersonal communication and organizational communication, focuses on particular resources transmitting information to numerous receivers. The study of mass communication is chiefly concerned with how the content and information that is being mass communicated persuades or affects the behavior, attitude, opinion, or emotion of people receiving the information.
In media studies, mass communication, media psychology, communication theory, and sociology, media influence and themedia effect are topics relating to mass media and media culture's effects on individuals' or audiences' thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Through written, televised, or spoken channels, mass media reach large audiences. Mass media's role in shaping modern culture is a central issue for the study of culture.
The Metallic Metals Act was a fictional piece of legislation included in a 1947 American opinion survey conducted by Sam Gill and published in the March 14, 1947, issue of Tide magazine. When given four possible replies, 70% of respondents claimed to have an opinion on the act. It has become a classic example of the risks of meaningless responses to closed-ended questions and prompted the study of the pseudo-opinion phenomenon.
In the social sciences, framing comprises a set of concepts and theoretical perspectives on how individuals, groups, and societies organize, perceive, and communicate about reality. Framing can manifest in thought or interpersonal communication. Frames in thought consist of the mental representations, interpretations, and simplifications of reality. Frames in communication consist of the communication of frames between different actors. Framing is a key component of sociology, the study of social interaction among humans. Framing is an integral part of conveying and processing data daily. Successful framing techniques can be used to reduce the ambiguity of intangible topics by contextualizing the information in such a way that recipients can connect to what they already know.
Reinforcement theory is a limited effects media model applicable within the realm of communication. The theory generally states that people seek out and remember information that provides cognitive support for their pre-existing attitudes and beliefs. The main assumption that guides this theory is that people do not like to be wrong and often feel uncomfortable when their beliefs are challenged.
Public opinion on climate change is the aggregate of attitudes or beliefs held by a population concerning issues relating to "anthropogenic climate change, perceptions of climate change risks, concern about its seriousness, and thoughts on what, if anything, should be done to address it." Public opinion on climate change is related to a broad set of variables, including the effects of sociodemographic, political, cultural, economic, and environmental factors" as well as media coverage and interaction with different news and social media.
In studies of science communication, the information deficit model, also known as the deficit model or science literacy/knowledge deficit model, theorizes that scientific literacy can be improved with increased public engagement by the scientific community. As a result, the public may then be able to make more decisions that are science-informed. The model implies that communication should focus on improving the transfer of information from experts to non-experts.
Survey response effects are variations in survey responses that result from seemingly inconsequential aspects of survey design and administration. Susceptibility to these effects varies depending on the stability of one's beliefs. Those without a strong attitude on an issue, for instance, would more be more prone to survey response effects than those strongly for or against the issue. These effects can be broadly grouped as consistency or contrast effects. Consistency effects are effects that lead to survey responses that agree, not to be confused with the identically-named term used to refer to the phenomenon in which respondents intentionally try to get their survey responses to agree one another. Contrast effects on the other hand, lead to opposing responses.
Google Opinion Rewards is a rewards-based program developed by Google. It was initially launched as a survey mobile app for Android and iOS developed by Google. The app allows users to answer surveys and earn rewards. On Android, users earn Google Play credits which can be redeemed by buying paid apps from Google Play. On iOS, users are paid via PayPal. Users in the available countries who are over 18 years old are eligible. Google Opinion Rewards works with Google Surveys, market researchers make the survey through Google Surveys and answers are received through Google Opinion Rewards by app users. This process provides surveyors with a large pool of surveyees quickly. This "fast and easy" surveying process has been criticized due to contention over the validity of results as well as concern over the privacy and security of the app users' data.
Political bias is a bias or perceived bias involving the slanting or altering of information to make a political position or political candidate seem more attractive. With a distinct association with media bias, it commonly refers to how a reporter, news organisation, or TV show covers a political candidate or a policy issue.
Political cognition refers to the study of how individuals come to understand the political world, and how this understanding leads to political behavior. Some of the processes studied under the umbrella of political cognition include attention, interpretation, judgment, and memory. Most of the advancements in the area have been made by scholars in the fields of social psychology, political science, and communication studies.
RAS model may refer to: