Public opinion
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.
For other uses, see Public opinion (disambiguation).In the 21st century, public opinion is widely thought to be heavily influenced by the media; many studies have been undertaken which look at the different factors which influence public opinion. Politicians and other people concerned with public opinion often attempt to influence it using advertising or rhetoric. Opinion plays a vital role in uncovering some critical decisions. Sentiment analysis or opinion mining is a method used to mine the thoughts or feelings of the general population.[1] One of the struggles of public opinion is how it can be influenced by misinformation.
Etymology[edit]
The term "public opinion" was derived from the French opinion publique, which was first used in 1588 by Michel de Montaigne in the second edition of his Essays (ch. XXII).[2]
The French term also appears in the 1761 work Julie, or the New Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.[3][4]
Precursors of the phrase in English include William Temple's "general opinion" (appearing in his 1672 work On the Original and Nature of Government) and John Locke's "law of opinion" (appearing in his 1689 work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding).[4]
Relationship with public policy[edit]
The most pervasive issue dividing theories of the opinion-policy relation bears a striking resemblance to the problem of monism-pluralism in the history of philosophy. The controversy deals with the question of whether the structure of socio-political action should be viewed as a more or less centralized process of acts and decisions by a class of key leaders, representing integrated hierarchies of influence in society or whether it is more accurately envisaged as several sets of relatively autonomous opinion and influence groups, interacting with representative decision makers in an official structure of differentiated governmental authority. The former assumption interprets individual, group and official action as part of a single system and reduces politics and governmental policies to a derivative of three basic analytical terms: society, culture and personality.
Despite philosophical arguments regarding public opinion, social scientists (those in sociology, political science, economics and social psychology) present compelling theories to describe how public opinion shapes public policy and find myriad effects of opinion on policy using various empirical research methods. Moreover, researchers find that causal relationships likely run in both directions from opinion to policy and from policy to opinion. On the one hand, public opinion signals public preferences and potential voting behaviors to policymakers.[22][23] This impact should be greater under more stable democratic institutions.[24] It should be greatest in the realm of social policy because the public are highly motivated by potential goods and services they get from the state. On the other hand, social policy impacts public opinion. The goods and services the public gets via social policy builds normative expectations that shape public opinion.[25][26] Furthermore, social policy constitutes the largest share of state spending budgets, making it an active and contentious political area.[27] Together these theories suggest that causal effects are part of a feedback loop between opinion and policy.[28][29][30] Using increasingly sophisticated methods, scholars are beginning to grasp and identify the feedback of opinion and policy and use this phenomenon to explain the path dependency of institutions.[31][32][33]
For decades, the correlation between public opinion and public policy was consistently tested to examine its effects. A 1993 study argued that social construction is overlooked yet plays an important role when studying public policy. It tested the theory that social constructions influence the policy agenda, policy tools, and policy choices. Its conclusions states that social constructions help to understand the motive and decision making behind public officials who do implement certain policies towards target populations.[34]
In a 2004 study, they also take the approach of studying the relationship between social constructions and policy implementation. It tested the hypothesis that negative constructed social groups such as criminals are the foundation of policy implementation. Its conclusion the politically powerless and negatively perceived groups receive the least benefits in the policy process, showing that social constructions and social power do play an important role in the political policy implementation process.[35]
In a 2012 study, instead of analyzing public opinion and policy implementation, it analyzes how the public's participation plays a role in policy implementation. It is said to be one of the first large-scale empirical examinations regarding citizen involvement in policy. It results indicate that between democratic and administrative decision making, there is a trade-off. Citizen input provides administrators with important and valuable information. Citizen input also helps to push the efficiency and effectiveness of public programs. However, there is no trade-off in values between democracy and bureaucracy.[36]
In a 2015 study, it examined the role social constructions and policy implementation has on obesity while analyzing obesity narratives. Their findings suggest that social constructions of target populations do play an important role. Its role is to create an emotional response towards individuals in order to pushing implementation towards supportive policies and benefit positively constructed populations, while also pushing policies that punish the negatively constructed populations.[37]
Relationship with foreign policy[edit]
As with public policy, public opinion also has a close relationship with foreign policy. There is much debate concerning what the relationship is and the study of foreign policy's relationship with public opinion has evolved over time, with the Almond–Lippmann consensus being one of the first attempt to define this relationship. Published before the Vietnam War, Gabriel Almond and Walter Lippmann argued that public opinion about foreign policy was unstructured, incoherent, and highly volatile, and that public opinion shouldn't influence foreign policy.[38] More recent studies have rebuked the Almond-Lippmann Consensus, showing how people's opinions are generally stable, and that while individuals may not be entirely informed about every issue, they still act efficiently and rationally.[39][38]
People's judgments about issues are often based on heuristics, which are mental shortcuts that allow rational decisions to be made quickly. Heuristics apply to public opinion about domestic as well as foreign policy. The deductive heuristic is one that relies on a person's core values and social groups. Delegative heuristics are influenced by figures of authority such as the media or president.[40]
Another key theory about how people form their opinions on foreign policy issues is Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley's hierarchical attitudes model. They argue that it is structured, with core values providing the basis for postures which further influence the ultimate issue position.[41] Public opinion about foreign policy is measured in the same way that all public opinion is measured. Through polls and surveys, respondents are asked about their issue positions. Conclusions are drawn by researchers by applying the scientific method.[42]
Relationship with U.S. presidency[edit]
According to Robert Shapiro, public opinion and policy-making are fundamental to a democracy, which is linked to electoral accountability, meaning that the leader who was elected "will not deviate far from voters' opinion".[43] A problem that arises when analyzing the data collected by researchers is how these issues that are "important" are selected when collecting the data about public opinion. It is hard to determine if there has been underdevelopment of certain issues. Another concern is how elites influence public opinion by persuasion and rhetoric, ultimately shaping policy-making. These two variables are ambiguous by nature and are hard to get to any conclusions, in most cases beyond the limits of research. Other variables to look at when analyzing the opinion-policy effect are the size of the majority public, election cycle time, degree of electoral competition, and the type of issue. For example, domestic affairs public opinion will be of greater importance than that of foreign affairs because of the complexity.[43]
Since presidents have the ability to influence their political agenda, it is easier for them to respond to public opinion. Since they are not an institution (like Congress), they can also "shift the standards by which the public evaluates their performance in office – away from policy concerns and towards more symbolic activities, image, and personality".[43]
A study by James N. Druckman and Lawrence R. Jacobs discusses how presidents collect their information for policymaking. They found that on one hand, they collect data about the public's preference on salient matters like crime and economy. This reflects a populist type of democracy where the government portrays respect toward the people's views and they are connected. On the other hand, government institutions and elites believe the general populations' understanding of certain issued is limited, therefore they exercise autonomy when making these decisions.[44][43]
Baum and Kernell have stated that a challenge that modern presidents face when trying to persuade public opinion is that there is so many different types of media, that getting people's attention is hard.[45] New media alternatives has also caused on effect on presidential leadership as they now use them to be able to communicate younger generations, but targeting small groups of people.