public opinion essay

Psychology Discussion

Essay on public opinion.

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In this essay we will discuss about Public Opinion. After reading this essay you will learn about: 1. Meaning of Public Opinion 2. Definition of Public Opinion 3. Characteristics 4. Approaches 5. Public Opinion as a Process 6. Basic Steps of Public Opinion Formation 7. Factors Influencing 8. Role of Press and Electronic Media 9. Method of Measuring Public Opinion.

• Method of Measuring Public Opinion

Essay # 1. Meaning of Public Opinion:

In simple terms public opinion means opinions held by the people at a certain time on a certain issue. In a narrow sense it may mean a noncontiguous and transitory mass of individuals with a common or general interest. Here, the public may not be held together by face to face or shoulder to shoulder contact.

A number of people may scatter in different places, react to a common stimulus provided by indirect and mechanistic means of communication like newspapers, magazines, radios, TVs, motion pictures, posters and pamphlets etc. The public in this connection refers to a group of people who are confronted with an issue, divided in their ideas, engage in a discussion over the issue and reach at a decision.

According to Kupuswamy, the term public signifies the general body of persons belonging to a particular community whether it is a small group or a national group or people of the world as a whole. The term public, therefore, implies a noncontiguous but psychological group where there is no face to face or shoulder to shoulder contact.

Though the people react to a common stimulus, they are scattered spatially may be all over the world.

Public opinion on woman liberation, gender prejudice, role of women in politics and decision-making, public opinion on economic reforms, winning of political parties in ensuing elections are some of the brilliant examples of how public opinion may scatter throughout the world and may spread without any direct personal and face to face, shoulder to shoulder contact.

But the reaction is made to a particular common issue. Means of communication play paramount role in the building up and spread of public opinion. In public opinion, there is agreement on certain views and disagreement on others. Group feeling or we feeling helps in the formation and stability of a public opinion which is based on a general issue.

In order to be effective, a public opinion must concern the community as a whole, the problem of public opinion would be a problem for most of the members of the community or society. Otherwise it will not spread and sustain. A community where poverty is not the issue or problem and everyone is much above the poverty line, any issue on poverty will not touch their mind as they are quite well settled economically.

But in a conservative society where women are not allowed to go out and work, where there is lot of objection against providing minimum liberty to women like the liberty to get education, to strive for economic independence, and of course the liberty not to tolerate injustice and oppression, in such a male dominated, male chauhanistic society, the real problem of women is to get freedom of speech and action and right to work.

At this juncture, any effort to spread public opinion on women liberation will be fruitful among women and such public opinion will spread as it relates to their immediate problem.

Essay # 2. Definition of Public Opinion :

According to Kimball Young (1946) public opinion consists of opinions held by a public at a certain time.

Cooley holds that public opinion should be regarded as an organised process and not merely as a state of agreement about some questions of the day. Public opinion is not disorganized like a crowd behaviour. Rather it is organized like a group behaviour.

According to Allport (1937), “the term public opinion is given its meaning with reference to a much individual situation in which individuals are expressing themselves or can be called upon to express themselves as favouring or supporting disfavouring and opposing some definite condition, person or proposal of widespread importance in such a proportion, number, intensity and constancy to give rise to the probability of affecting action, directly or indirectly towards the object concerned.”

Though unclear, this definition points out the nature and function of public opinion in general.

V.V. Akolkar remarks that public opinion refers to that mass of ideas which people have or express on a given issue. According to Kupuswamy, public opinion consists of opinions held by people of a smaller or a larger community about a particular problem at a certain time.

Individual opinions are, thus, assimilated in public opinion concerning various problems along with ideas, notions and judgements. In public opinion, everybody should not have identical view, but the majority must reach a consensus to call it a public opinion. Thus, public opinion represents the views of the majority and powerful group.

Essay # 3. Characteristics of Public Opinion :

(1) Any opinion which is acceptable to all or at least to most of persons, can be called public opinion.

(2) Public opinion indicates assimilation and combination of opinions of the majority of the group.

(3) In public opinion, the chief characteristics is common acceptance of the group.

(4) In public opinion, the problem or issue around which the opinion is formed must be a problem of the majority of the community.

(5) A public opinion is based on social and cultural unity of the community.

(6) A public opinion is not transitory and disorganised like a crowd. It is organised like a group, can continue for a certain period. But it is also liable to change.

(7) For the formation of public opinion direct and indirect means of communications are essential.

(8) Public opinion can be developed without any spatial or shoulder to shoulder or face to face contact.

(9) Indirect means of communication play a tremendous role in the formation of public opinion.

(10) Public opinion may grow on different problems like political, economic, social and religious issues.

(11) Public opinions become effective chiefly because of related institutions and groups which furnish direct contact and which have, by the large, formal organisations, codes and purposes like political parties, press, Radio, TV etc.

(12) Some are under the impression that public opinion is always guided and determined by rational group judgements. But this assumption is not always correct. Public opinion may not always be formed around true, good and ideal things. Sometimes the majority opinion may not be rational and based on facts.

But public opinion based on such facts may not last longer and here is an occasion when it changes in favour of the correct, just and right.

Essay # 4. Approaches to Public Opinion :

Public opinion may be approached in the following line:

(1) Public opinion as a static or composite of beliefs and views which are not necessarily in entire agreement with each other.

(2) The interactional growth and opinions among the members of the public. This approach considers the process of opinion formation.

Public opinion should be considered as an organic process and not merely a state of agreement about some questions and issues of the day. There may not be complete consensus in public opinion. The formation of public opinion is the consequence of interaction between individuals in the group. The minority opinion may also emerge as a public opinion, when it is able to influence the majority.

Essay # 5. Public Opinion as a Process:

Public opinion is a collective and dynamic process. It changes from time to time. Change in public opinion can be introduced by responsible adult citizens for the welfare of the country. Out of discussion when some uniformity or consensus arises it paves the ways for the formation of public opinion. Thus, uniformity in views arising out of mutual discussion may form the basis of public opinion.

Since public opinion is not a static concept and is liable to continuous change from time to time on a particular problems it continues as a process.

Public opinion has greater role in a democracy than elsewhere. Here, the citizens have to play a responsible role for the upliftment of their state or nation. Democracy makes every citizen duty bound to discuss the various problems and issues concerning the welfare of the society or community. From the consensus rising out of such discussion, public opinion emerges.

Even though a few people who are called the minority may not agree with this view they have to go by the majority opinion. Again after some time or lapse of a certain period of time, the opinion adopted by the minority is accepted by a majority people and it becomes the public opinion.

Thus, opinion may swing from time to time depending upon the majority view which is also determined by several other factors. One popular example may be public opinion for a particular political party is changed after 2-3 years in favour of another party if people are not satisfied with the functioning and performance of the former party. The process of public opinion is complex and continuous.

Though public opinion is most powerful in a democracy, from times immemorial, we find that it is very strong in villages. Even before independence we find the opinion of village people playing a very strong role in various social and emotional issues.

Essay # 6. Basic Steps of Public Opinion Formation:

The process of public opinion formation, starts when some responsible citizens after identifying certain problems bring it to the notice of others, may be formally or informally. They discuss it thoroughly in a common forum trying for a solution. The problem may be related to illiteracy, agriculture, health, family planning or panchayat raj, drug abuse or alcohol.

Thus, in the first step of public opinion the problem of issue is defined and identified by some people. Various interest groups in the public contest different views. They try to get the support from the rest of the people who initially do not show any interest on the issue.

The interested groups try to arouse the emotion of the people and thereby make efforts to get their support. On the second stage, an identified problem is discussed in great detail for bringing some solution.

It is found that many tribal people of India take recourse to country wine which is a major cause of their backward socio economic condition. Some social workers or non-Govt. voluntary organisations after identifying this problem standing on the way of the development of tribal people started discussing how to stop excessive drinking habit of the tribals.

Thus, the possible ways of dealing with the problem are worked out. All the positive and negative aspects of the issue are discussed and deliberated and whether it is possible to reach the goal is also explored.

In sum, in the second stage the problem is studied in detail and possible solutions are worked out to raise the public opinion like giving the news to various medias to publish or broadcast for the awareness of the public.

In the third stage, alternative proposals for the solution of the problem are put forward. After knowing about the issue from the press or electronic media, people from other groups and other villages will come and participate in the discussion, give slogans. Sometimes a crowd like situation may emerge and the rational aspect of the issue may be lost in a Hood of stereotyped slogans and emotional appeals.

People opposing prohibition among tribal people may try to give opposite statements, slogans, may make several propagandas and may spread rumour and thereby try to create conflict when the public opinion has not been fully formed and is still in a fluid state and only in the process of formation. Thus, in the third stage, both rational and irrational considerations enter into the opinion formation in democratic societies.

In the fourth and final stage of opinion formation from all the speeches, slogans, conversations and discussions, the majority of the members reach at a final decision regarding a particular issue. Thus, a conclusion is derived from a comparative analysis of opinions so expressed.

This becomes the public opinion. For instance, after lots of deliberations they finally reached at the decision that prohibition is essential for the upliftment of tribal people and active efforts are to be made to make prohibition effective.

This may not be the opinion of all, but if it is the opinion of the majority or most people, it becomes the public opinion as democracy chiefly operates by majority votes. In public opinion, there is difference of opinion, there is controversy but finally the view of the majority emerges as public opinion.

The quality and effectiveness of a public opinion depends upon how effectively the public has been involved in the discussion. The various mass and electronic medias, group discussions and public meetings also necessarily determine the quality of public opinion.

Essay # 7. Factors Influencing Public Opinion:

Public opinion is formed through a dynamic and gradual process. It is not formed overnight or instantly. Factors like basic needs, prejudices, motivations, propaganda through various means and role of the leader influence public opinion.

They are discussed here briefly:

Basic needs:

Deep rooted basic needs determine to a great extent public opinion. Particularly when it is found that public opinions are not entirely based on rational facts, the role of emotional and sentimental needs play an upper hand. That is why, for formation of a new public opinion references are made to fundamentalism, communalism, national integration, stability, traditional and religious values, conscience and morality, honesty, truthfulness etc. to tap the public. In a society where women are tortured and misbehaved, public opinion may be formed against the persons who are involved in this.

(i) Socio-cultural Conditioning :

In the formation of public opinion socio-cultural conditioning plays a role when people without finding any reason, accept a particular opinion or issue because of the social norms and values. Early socialisation process which plays a role in the formation of attitude, stereotype, beliefs and prejudices always determine public opinion.

Certain basic issues and opinions of a particular society are more often than not based on values and traditions of the society passed through cultural conditioning. The public opinion towards females, towards scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other disadvantaged people in the society arc determined by socio-cultural conditioning.

(ii) Prejudice :

The role of prejudice in the determination of public opinion is also equally important. Attitude towards disadvantaged sections of the society colour one’s public opinion and beliefs.

(iii) Leader :

The role of a leader is crucial in determining public opinion and giving it definition and final shape just as it happens in a group or a crowd. The leader of the group is the centre around which the different ends of the discussion crystallize to a single unified point.

The leader not only gives direction and stability to the public opinion it also helps in eliminating the opposite forces who stand on the way of formation of a particular public opinion.

The leader makes an assessment on the general mood of people, before mobilizing public opinion in a particular direction. The leader may not be able to create a situation for public opinion, but he can take advantage of the existing situation and manipulate it to his advantage or to the advantage of people.

(iv) Motivation :

When the person is in need of something and desires to fulfil such needs there is an inner desire or drive to form some public opinion. The fulfil the motive, people become more active and goal oriented and this force of reaching the goal which has been frustrated helps in determining public opinion.

Abolition of zamindari system in many states of India, is a glaring example of how motive helps in the formation of public opinion. In India the lands were centralized with the zamindars and they were the sole authorities. The poor landless persons only worked in their fields and got very nominal wages. Thus, a public opinion to abolish zamindari system started in the form of a revolution.

The public opinion would not have been so strong and effective if all the people in the villages had sufficient lands in their occupation. It is, therefore, needless to say that in the formation of public opinion strong motives are involved. If someone is not concerned for a particular problem or issue, he will not usually bother if it goes to hail.

Behind any public opinion, the operation of strong human motives are always found. The chance of a particular problem becoming a public opinion lays on the existing demands, needs and instructions of people. According to Cantril, “verbal statements and outlines of courses of action have maximum importance when opinion is unstructured, when people are suggestible and seek some interpretation from a reliable source.”

(v) Education and Imitation :

In the formation of public opinion, education and imitation have their respective roles to play. Because of difference in educational qualification of the rural and urban people, there is a great deal of difference in the public opinion of rural and urban people. We can have glaring examples of this during the time of election either Grampanchayat or Assembly or Parliament.

Sometimes a clear line of demarcation is seen in the public opinion of rural and urban people because of the influence of education. Some say that usually the public opinion of the rural people is dogmatic and systematized and it is more progressive in the urban area.

Education makes one rational and explorative. Curiosity, inquisitiveness etc. are elevated because of education. As urban people are, by and large, more educated than the rural people, they do not easily form a public opinion unless convinced themselves.

(vi) Imitation :

It is a common human psychology to go with the majority which is called “band wagon effect,” when some people who do not have any definite opinion on the issue and are still confused find that majority people are accepting or holding a particular opinion, they also join them thinking that since majority people are holding it, it must be the right and just opinion.

(vii) Role of Government :

For developing awareness and public opinion, in favour of various welfare works undertaken by the Govt., like literacy, economic security, health, family planning, saving and investment, child care Govt, through various means of propaganda try to create public opinion so that people can readily accept and take proper advantage of such welfare programmes.

No welfare programme can be successful unless it is accepted by people and for this acceptance formation of publication is imperative. In each and every state, therefore, there are Information and Public Relations Departments who mobilize public opinion in addition to other works.

(viii) Religion and Caste :

Religion and caste in India and Black and White feeling in South Africa are some of the examples of how religion and caste feeling play significant role in the determination of public opinion towards various issues.

Though India is often talked as a secular democratic republic because of the constitutional provisions in practice, caste influences our social life and religious considerations systematically influence our public opinion.

Of course, due to increase in educational status of people and impact of civilisation and other nations, this feeling is gradually disintegrating. But these age long feelings are still deep rooted and can be uprooted through intercaste and interreligion marriages, and education.

Kimball Young has described the following factors influencing public opinion:

(1) Specific economic phenomena

(2) Other specific incidents

(3) Incidents influencing the international situation

(4) Changes of the individual’s direction of action by specific incidents

(5) Social phenomena related to the intellectual view point.

(6) Delusive phenomena related to rationalization

(7) Phenomena introducing stability.

These phenomena may influence public opinion formation independently or combinedly.

Essay # 8. Role of Press and Electronic Media in the Formation of Public Opinion:

Newspapers and Magazines are the most popular medium used for the formation of public opinion. Since it is not possible on the part of people of different parts of a state, country or nation to come in direct contact with each other, newspapers play a very strong role in the formation of public opinion.

Many people only by knowing various issues from the newspapers and how others are supporting them develop public opinion. The band wagon effect is well carried through newspapers. Views of Government and various leaders are transmitted to the mass through the newspapers which are well known as mass media.

Newspapers play a determining role in the formation, maintenance and change of public opinion, sometimes facts are twisted to suit the purpose and motive of vested interest of newspapers and, thus, public opinion is formed on misleading information’s.

This is called yellow journalism. Such newspapers should be kept under close watch. But newspapers, nevertheless, give proper guidance to the public in formation of public opinion.

Radio and TV :

Radio is more effective than newspapers in influencing public opinion. Both Radio and TV function under Govt, control. So people usually consider it as reliable and valid. Electronic medias, therefore, not only help in the formation of a large percentage of public opinion they also play effective role in changing public opinion.

Many surveys are being conducted on public opinion sponsored by Radio and TV authorities to measure public opinion relating to various issues.

Several scientific studies of propaganda have also been made through Radio and TV to study its effect on public. Very recently just before 1996 Parliamentary Election in India opinion polls on various political parties getting votes were made. It was found that this had also tremendous impact on public opinion.

The radio and TV are Govt, medias and are, therefore, considered as reliable and valid. Many systematic and scientific studies of propaganda have been made through the Radio and TV on consumer goods and general election, popularity of a leader, scope of winning of a party etc. to study its effects on public opinion.

Recently during the 11th Lok Sabha Election many private oganisations and newspaper authorities made surveys and exist polls as to which party will get how many members in which state etc. and these were broadcast and telecast.

TV is more effective than Radio in forming public opinion as it is an audiovisual aid, while radio has only auditory stimulation, TV has the extra advantage of visual stimulation. When people see things in their own eyes through several characters, they believe and strengthen the already existing public opinion or change the old ones.

Just like the small screen i.e. TV, motion pictures reflect ideas, attitudes and values of people which help in the formation and change of public opinion. Various fashion shows are telecast in TV to establish favourable attitude towards certain types of dress designs.

Once majority of the public like the appreciate such dresses a public opinion is formed in favour of these designs. A negative public opinion may also emerge if most people do not like the various designs.

Newspapers have usually bigger coverage than Radio and TV. They are also less costly, easily available everywhere and an economically disadvantaged person can afford to buy a newspaper. Though radio and TV are costly and are not easily affordable, however they play effective role in the formation and change of public opinion because of greater motivation and audiovisual effects.

Emphasising the role of radio in public opinion formation, Allport and Cantril have suggested that while using radio as a means of influencing public opinion care should be taken on the following points:

(1) Females should make the majority of broadcasts as their voices are quite pleasant, soothing and liked by the audience.

(2) While talking on the radio, the speaker must stress on the very purpose and should be more reality oriented.

(3) Pronunciations should be as clear as possible.

(4) The same ideas should not be repeated over and over again. Hence repetition should be avoided to overcome boredom.

(5) The sentences should not be very lengthy and should not be spoken speedily.

(6) On the average a performance should not be more than 15 minutes.

Essay # 9. Methods of Measuring Public Opinion:

The techniques of polling came into wide use in 1936 when the American Institute of Public Opinion’s prediction that Roosevelt would win in the American Presidential election came out true. The purpose of public opinion poll is to give reports of public thinking on the various problems confronting the society.

By knowing public opinion trends, Govt, can take steps and decisions in consonance with public opinion. Broadly the methods used to measure public opinion can be divided into two such as Qualitative Method and Quantitative Method.

(i) Qualitative Method :

(i) The historical method of measuring public opinion attempts to study the change of public opinion through the last several years, because of several political, economic, social and historical occurrences.

One may compare the public opinion that existed towards the British in 1947 with the public opinion at 1996 and evaluate the changes therein. Similarly, the opinion of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes towards the Govt., twenty years back and now can also be verified.

Many major facts relating to public opinion came to the surface through this method. The public opinion regarding customs, traditions, dogmas, rituals, can be measured by the qualitative method. The public opinion on certain related issues can also be measured before and after a riot or before and after a civil war.

(ii) Public opinion is also measured qualitatively by the case study method. By means of group interviews, the change in public opinion of a particular group can be assessed. During face to face interview one can know how, why and when a particular public opinion was formed.

The public opinion towards working women or middle class women going outside for work has undergone a major change within the last 50-60 years.

Similar is the case with women education. Because of change in attitude and public opinion towards women education we find the percentage of literacy of women is rising in every census and more and more women are allowed to work outside leaving the home front. Opinion towards communal and religious groups can also be measured by this method.

Inspite of the usefulness of qualitative methods to measure public opinion, they have been criticised on the ground of lack of objectivity, reliability and validity. In view of the limitations and deficiency of the qualitative method there was the need to develop some quantitative method to measure public opinion.

(ii) Quantitative Methods :

Polling Method:

This is a quite novel technique of measuring public opinion. Polling method is very much in use in various democratic countries particularly at the time of election. In India and USA this method is extensively used to measure public opinion.

Before the 1996 Parliamentary election several opinion polls were made through various ballot papers, questionnaires and interviews to find out which party would get majority to form the Govt, whether there is a possibility of ‘Hung’ parliament or a coalition Government at centre, what will be people’s verdict towards minor political parties or new parties who have disintegrated from old ones and so on.

A sample is first decided keeping in mind sex, education, occupation, income, area of residence i.e., rural-urban background, religion and caste etc. Only when the sample is truly representative of the proportions of these variables result will be close to actual behaviour.

These variables are to be balanced to get an accurate opinion. In other words, depending upon the percentage of rural and urban population in the universe, their sex, age, education, religion and caste the sample is to be selected.

If only the view of rural or urban population is polled, the public opinion of the entire people of a country will not accurately come to picture. Further, the size of the sample should be sufficiently high to make the poll reliable and valid. The polls conducted in the first quarter of twentieth century indicated 12 to 20 per cent errors.

This technique subsequently developed into market research. The manufacturers of various consumer goods use polling technique on a large scale to know the opinion of people about their products so that they can make necessary desired changes in their products from the consumer’s point of view.

Western countries, Doordarshan in India, BBC and other private TV companies use this technique today as it is a simple and easy procedure of opinion poll and data can be collected from a large number of people within a very short span of time.

But errors in the sampling technique and formulation of questions, bias, and subjective element in the interview technique and errors in the treatment of data increase the percentage of errors in polls.

The sample must be so selected to represent the population. If the sample is not representative of the population judgement errors are but inevitable. For preparation of satisfactory standard questions, there should be several pilot studies or per testings. The questions are to be modified and standardized as per the results of the pretests or pilot studies.

Opinion polls can be made on linguistic issues, gender problems, prohibition, dowry, uniform civil code, love and arranged marriage, reservation of socially and economically disadvantaged etc.

(iii) Quasi Experimental Method :

By this method steps have been taken to observe and assess the influence of editorials published in newspapers on the opinion of people. Meier’s study is noteworthy in this regard.

Similarly, documentary films are also produced and screened from time to time by the central Govt, and State governments to influence the opinion of people on community development projects and on measures taken by Govt, for the welfare of poor, socially, economically disadvantaged minority groups and SC, ST people.

In this method, people are given some controlled stimuli and their views are obtained. Parsons and Thurstone used this method to find out the opinion of the public on attitude towards cinema. Meier and Annis using the Quasi Experimental Method found that in the people the more active values are the effective ones rather than the national values.

(iv) Analysis of Letters to Editors and Legislators :

By going through the letters of the public to editors of daily newspapers and magazines one can have some idea about the public opinion. If daily large number of letters are written against the functioning of a Govt., it is to be taken for granted that public opinion is unfavourable towards the Govt, and the treasury bench. If the reverse is the case, public opinion appears to be favourable towards the government.

But it is a fact that merely on the basis of letters to editors or MLAs and Ministers, public opinion cannot be judged accurately. So one should be very careful and cautious while measuring public opinion through this method.

(v) Questionnaire Method :

For measuring public opinion questionnaire method is also used. The questionnaire on the issue should not be lengthy, but should be short and precise. It should be standardized on the basis of pilot studies. The language should be simple and should express meaning clearly. Those questions which cannot be asked in the interview can be asked through questionnaires.

It is seen that the various methods or guides to public opinion have pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages. Public opinion research shows that more of these methods are perfect on themselves. But the public opinion poll technique is a quite satisfactory method. Public opinion polls have speeded up the process of democracy by providing accurate and quick reports.

Public opinion polls have shown that common people do make good decisions. Public opinion polls have also helped to focus attention on major problems of the day. Fundamental weaknesses of various systems have been highlighted through public opinion.

Polls and ignorances in many areas have been brought forward. Public opinion polls have helped administrators to take wise decisions since any problem planned to influence the public opinion must be based upon accurate knowledge of the opinion, beliefs and attitude of people.

Forecasting the outcome of an election is a far more difficult task than it is ordinarily recognised. Random procedures produce more adequate samples. Each person in the population must be given an equal and known chance to take part in the opinion poll.

If the purpose is to predict an election, the sample should consist all the eligible voters, selected at random and interviews are also to be made on this sample. Area of sampling eliminates sources of bias present in the quota control samples.

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Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs about a particular topic or issue held by a significant proportion of the total population. In 1961, American political scientist V.O. Key struck the importance of public opinion in politics when he defined it as “those opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed.” As computer-assisted statistical and demographic data analysis advanced during the 1990s, public opinion came to be understood as the collective view of a more specifically defined portion of the population, such as a particular demographic or ethnic group. While commonly considered in terms of its influence on politics and elections, public opinion is also a force in other areas, such as fashion, popular culture, the arts, advertising, and consumer spending.

While there is no specific reference to the term until the 18th century, ancient history is peppered with phenomena closely resembling public opinion. For example, the histories of ancient Babylonia and Assyria refer to the influence of popular attitudes. The prophets and patriarchs of ancient Israel and Samaria were known to attempt to sway the opinions of the people. In referring to the classic direct democracy of ancient Athens , influential philosopher Aristotle stated that “he who loses the support of the people is a king no longer.” 

During the Middle Ages , most common people were focused more on surviving plagues and famines than on matters of state and politics. However, phenomena similar to public opinion existed. In 1191, for example, English statesman William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, found himself attacked by his political opponents for employing troubadours to sing of his merits to the extent that “people spoke of him as though his equal did not exist on earth.”

By the end of the beginning of the Renaissance , interest in public affairs was growing steadily as the lay population became better educated. In Italy, the rise of humanism gave rise to a cadre of writers whose skills were especially useful to princes hoping to expand their domains. For example, King Charles V of Spain hired Italian writer Pietro Aretino to defame, threaten, or flatter his rivals. A contemporary of Aretino, the influential Italian political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli , stressed that princes should pay close attention to popular opinion, particularly concerning the distribution of public offices. 

The 17th and 18th centuries brought more sophisticated means of distributing information. The first regularly published newspapers appeared around 1600 and multiplied rapidly, despite often being subjected to government censorship. The end of the 18th century finally showed the immense power of public opinion. Both the American Revolution from 1765 to 1783 and the French Revolution from 1789 to 1799 were inspired to a large extent by expressions of public opinion. In both cases, the spontaneous ability of public opinion to overwhelm one of the best-entrenched and powerful institutions of the age—the monarchy —greatly increased the ranks of its devotees. 

As theories of social classes evolved during the 19th century, some scholars concluded that public opinion was primarily the domain of the upper classes. In 1849, the English author William A. Mackinnon defined it as “that sentiment on any given subject which is entertained by the best informed, most intelligent, and most moral persons in the community.” Notably, Mackinnon also distinguished public opinion from “public clamor,” which he described as “that sort of feeling arising from the passions of a multitude acting without consideration; or an excitement created amongst the uneducated.”

During the late 19th and the early 20th century, noted social and political scholars considered the realities and effects of public opinion. In 1945, the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote, “Public opinion contains all kinds of falsity and truth, but it takes a great man to find the truth in it.” Hegel further warned that “The man who lacks sense enough to despise public opinion expressed in gossip will never do anything great.” 

According to Canadian communications theorist Sherry Devereux Ferguson, most 20th century theories of public opinion fall into one of three general categories. The “populist” approach sees public opinion as a means of ensuring a healthy flow of communication between elected representatives and the people they represent. The “elitist” or social constructionist category emphasizes the ease with which public opinion can be manipulated and misinterpreted in light of the multiplicity of differing viewpoints that tend to form around any issue. The third, rather negative, known as “critical” or radical-functionalist, holds that public opinion is largely shaped by those power, rather than by the general public, including minority groups. For example, charismatic authoritarian or totalitarian leaders are typically extremely adept at controlling public opinion . 

Role in Politics

The most basic processes of democracy demand that citizens form opinions on various issues. Virtually any matter which requires executive of legislative government policymakers to render decisions may become a topic of public opinion. In politics, public opinion is often stimulated or reinforced by outside agencies such as biased media sources, grassroots movements , or government agencies or officials. English philosopher and economist Jeremy Bentham considered the most difficult job of legislators to be “conciliating the public opinion, in correcting it when erroneous, and in giving it that bent which shall be most favorable to produce obedience to his mandates.” 

Even as democracy was struggling to supplant monarchy, some scholars warned that public opinion could become a dangerous force. In his 1835 book, Democracy in America, French diplomat and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville warned that a government too easily swayed by the masses would become a “tyranny of the majority.” Over a century later, on February 19, 1957, then-Senator John F. Kennedy spoke of the inherent dangers of increased public participation in the policy-making process. “Public opinion in a democracy has, on many occasions in this nation and others, been too slow, too selfish, too short-sighted, too provincial, too rigid, or too impractical.” However, noted Kennedy, in the case of “hard decisions which require overwhelming public support, we can not—we dare not—exclude the people or ignore their opinions, whether right or wrong.”

Political scientists have determined that rather than impact the fine points of government policy, public opinion tends to set the boundaries within which policymakers operate. Not surprisingly, elected public officials will usually try to satisfy widespread public demand while avoiding making decisions they believe will be widely unpopular. In the United States, for example, there can be little doubt that widespread public opinion has paved the way for hugely impactful—yet controversial—social reform legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . 

In his 2000 book Politicians Don’t Pander , professor of political science Robert Y. Shapiro argues that most politicians have already decided how they will act on a given issue and use public opinion research merely to identify slogans and symbols that will make their predetermined actions more popular with their constituents. In this manner, Shapiro concludes that politicians are more likely to use public opinion research to manipulate the public rather than to act according to their wishes. In contrast to direct democracy , representative democracy tends to limit the influence of public opinion on specific government decisions, since in most cases, the only choice available to the public is that of approving or disapproving the election of government officials.

Public opinion tends to have a greater influence on government policy at the local level than at the state or national levels. This can be explained by the fact that local issues, such as road maintenance, parks, schools, and hospitals are less complex than those dealt with by higher levels of government. In addition, there are fewer levels of bureaucracy between voters and local elected leaders.

Key Influences 

The opinions of each individual are shaped by a vast array of internal and external influences, thus making it difficult to predict how public opinion on a given issue will develop. While some public opinions can be easily explained by specific events and circumstances such as wars or economic depressions, other factors influencing public opinion are less easily identified.    

Social Environment

Considered the most influential factor in determining public opinion is the person’s social environment: family, friends, workplace, church, or school. Research has shown that people tend to adopt the predominating attitudes and opinions of the social groups to which they belong. Researchers have found, for example, that if someone in the United States who is liberal becomes surrounded at home or workplace by people who profess conservatism, that person is more likely to start voting for conservative candidates than is a liberal whose family and friends are also liberal.

The media—newspapers, television and radio, news and opinion websites, and social media—tend to affirm already established public attitudes and opinions. The U.S. news media, for example, having become increasingly partisan, tend to direct their coverage of personalities and issues toward conservative or liberal segments of the public, thus reinforcing the preexisting political attitudes of their audiences. 

Media can also prompt people to take action. Before elections, for example, media coverage can inspire previously undecided or “leaning” voters to not only vote for but also contribute to a particular candidate or party. Most recently, the media, particularly social media, has played a negative role in shaping public opinion by spreading misinformation .

Interest Groups

Special interest groups , attempt to influence public opinion on issues of concern to their members. Interest groups may be concerned with political, economic, religious, or social issues or causes and work mostly through mass media and social media as well as by word of mouth. Some larger interest groups have the resources to make use of advertising and public relations firms. Increasingly, interest groups attempt to manipulate public opinion by exploiting the results of unsystematically conducted social media “straw-polls” as a means of making their causes appear more widely supported than they are. 

Opinion Leaders

Opinion leaders—typically prominent figures in public life—play a major role in influencing public opinion. Political leaders, for example, can turn a less well-known issue into a top national priority simply by calling attention to it in the media. One of the main ways in which opinion leaders rally public agreement on an issue is by coining memorable slogans. In World War I, for example, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson told the world that the Allies were aiming to “make the world safe for democracy” by fighting “a war to end all wars.” In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump rallied his supporters with his “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Other Influences 

Events, such as natural disasters or tragedies often influence public opinion. For example, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in 1986, the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, all galvanized public opinion about the environment. Tragic mass shootings, such as the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, intensified public opinion favoring stricter gun control laws.   

Some changes in public opinion are harder to explain. Since the 1960s, public opinions regarding sex and gender , religion, family, race, social welfare, income inequality , and the economy have undergone major shifts in many parts of the world. However, the change in public attitudes and opinions in these areas is difficult to attribute to any specific event or group of events.

Opinion Polling 

Scientifically conducted, nonbiased public opinion polls are used to gauge the public’s views and attitudes regarding specific topics. Polls are typically conducted either face-to-face or by telephone. Other polls may be conducted by mail or online. In face-to-face and telephone surveys, trained interviewers ask questions of people chosen at random from the population being measured. Responses are given, and interpretations are made based on the results. Unless all individuals in the sample population have an equal chance of being interviewed, the results of the poll would not be representative of the population and could thus be biased. 

Percentages reported in opinion polls reflect the proportion of a given population that has a particular response. For example, if the results of a scientific poll claiming a 3-point margin of error indicated that 30% of the eligible voters polled preferred a certain candidate, this means that if all voters were asked this question, between 27% and 33% would be expected to say they preferred this candidate. 

History of Polling 

The first known example of an opinion poll is generally considered to have been conducted in July 1824, when local newspapers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina asked voters their opinions on the upcoming presidential election pitting Revolutionary War hero Andrew Jackson against John Quincy Adams . The results showed that 70% of respondents intended to vote for Jackson, who went on to narrowly win the popular vote. However, when neither candidate won a majority of the Electoral College votes, Adams was elected president by the House of Representatives.

The idea caught on and newspapers across the United States soon were running their own polls. Known as “straw polls,” these early surveys were not scientifically designed, and their accuracy varied considerably. By the 20th century, efforts were made to make the polling more accurate and better representative of the community.

In 1916, a nationwide survey conducted by The Literary Digest correctly predicted the election of President Woodrow Wilson . On a roll, The Literary Digest polls went on to correctly predict the victories of Warren G. Harding in 1920, Calvin Coolidge in 1924, Herbert Hoover in 1928, and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. In 1936, the Digest’s poll of 2.3 million voters projected that Republican Alf Landon would win the presidential election. Instead, the incumbent Democrat Roosevelt was re-elected by a landslide . The polling error was attributed to the fact that Landon’s supporters were more enthusiastic about participating in the poll than Roosevelt’s. In addition, the Digest’s survey had sampled far too many affluent Americans who tended to vote for Republican candidates. The same year, however, upstart pollster George Gallup—of Gallup poll fame—conducted a much smaller but more scientifically designed poll that correctly predicted Roosevelt's landslide victory. The Literary Digest soon went out of business, as public opinion polling took off.

Purposes of Polling

When reported by the mass media, poll results may inform, entertain, or educate the public. In elections, scientifically conducted polls may represent one of the most objective and non-biased sources of political information for voters. Polls can also help politicians, business leaders, journalists, and other social elites learn what the general public is thinking. History has shown that government leaders and policymakers who pay attention to public opinion are better able to respond to the feelings of the groups they represent. 

Polls serve as a measurement tool that indicates how a population thinks and feels about any given topic. Polling gives people who normally have no voice in the mass media a chance to be heard. In this way, polls help people of different cultures better understand each other by giving individuals a chance to speak for themselves instead of allowing the most vocal media stars to present their opinion as the opinion of all.

Abilities and Limitations

Public opinion polling can fairly accurately reveal how opinions on issues are distributed within a given population. For example, a Gallup poll conducted in May 2021 showed that 63% percent of Democrats, 32% of independents and 8% of Republicans were satisfied with the way things were going in the U.S. Assuming that scientifically designed questions are asked by trained interviewers, polling can reveal how intensely opinions are held, the reasons for these opinions, and the likelihood that the opinions might be changed. Occasionally, polling can reveal the degree to which people holding an opinion can be thought of as a cohesive group, whose minds are unlikely to be changed. 

While polls are useful for revealing “what” or “how much” about public opinion, finding our “how” or “why” opinions are formed requires qualitative research —such as the use of focus groups . The use of focus groups allows for close observation between limited numbers of people rather than posing a series of questions to an individual in an in-depth interview.

Ideally, polls are designed and conducted by people or organizations that have no mission other than the objective measurement of public opinion. Unfortunately, bias can enter into the polling process at any point, particularly when the entity conducting the poll has a financial or political interest in the result or wishes to use the result to promote a specific agenda. For example, polls on political issues may be skewed by news agencies to reflect the opinions of their audience. Similarly, polls may be skewed by manufacturing firms engaged in market research, by interest groups seeking to popularize their views, and even by academic scholars wishing to inform or influence public discourse about some significant social or scientific issue. The results of such potentially biased polls are often released to the mass media in practice known as advocacy polling. 

It is also important to remember that polls are not elections. Polls are unable to predict the future behavior of individuals, including how—or if—they will actually vote in elections. Evidence of this can be seen in the poll-defying 1936 presidential election victory of Franklin Roosevelt over Alf Landon. Perhaps the best predictor of how people will vote remains simply how they voted in the last election.

• Key, V. O. “Public Opinion and American Democracy.” Alfred A Knopf, Inc., 1961, ASIN:‎ B0007GQCFE.
• Mackinnon, William Alexander (1849). “History of Civilisation and Public Opinion.” HardPress Publishing, 2021, ISBN-10: 1290718431.
• Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1945). “The Philosophy of Right .” Dover Publications, 2005, ISBN-10: ‎ 0486445631.
• Bryce, James (1888), “The American Commonwealth.” Liberty Fund, 1995, ISBN-10: ‎086597117X.
• Ferguson, Sherry Devereaux. “Researching the Public Opinion Environment: Theories and Methods.” SAGE Publications, May 11, 2000, ISBN-10: ‎0761915311. 
• Bentham, Jeremy. “Political Tactics (The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham). ” Clarendon Press, 1999, ISBN-10: ‎0198207727.
• de Tocqueville, Alexis (1835). “Democracy in America.” ‎ University of Chicago Press, April 1, 2002, ISBN-10: ‎0226805360.
• Shapiro, Robert Y. “Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness.” University of Chicago Press, 2000, ISBN-10: ‎0226389839.
• What Is Political Participation? Definition and Examples
• What Is Political Socialization? Definition and Examples
• What Is Hyperpluralism? Definition and Examples
• What Is Democracy? Definition and Examples
• Key Election Terms for Students
• What Are Interest Groups? Definition and Examples
• Understanding Political Culture
• What Is Majoritarianism? Definition and Examples
• Civil Society: Definition and Theory
• What Are Low Information Voters?
• What Are Single Issue Voters?
• How Social Media Has Changed Politics
• What Is Public Choice Theory?
• Why Don't More Americans Vote?
• What Is Astroturfing in Politics? Definition and Examples
• Direct Democracy: Definition, Examples, Pros and Cons

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AP®︎/College US Government and Politics

Course: ap®︎/college us government and politics   >   unit 4.

• Measuring public opinion
• Scientific polling introduction

Measuring public opinion: lesson overview

What is public opinion, and why do political scientists measure it, types of polls, review questions.

• Rita Skeeter selected 10 students from two of the four houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, to gauge opinions about the best teacher at the school. Six of the students she surveyed responded that Professor McGonagall was the best teacher, three responded that Professor Flitwick was the best teacher, and one responded that Professor Snape was the best teacher. Rita published the results of her survey in the Daily Prophet with the headline “McGonagall Voted Best Teacher at Hogwarts.”
• Arjun, Caitlyn, and Olivia are all running for class president. On election day, students from the journalism club stationed themselves outside of the voting booth and conducted an exit poll. At the end of the school day, they tallied 321 votes for Caitlyn, 297 votes for Olivia, and 266 votes for Arjun. The next day, after counting the votes, the principal announced that Olivia had won the election with 375 votes.

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6.4 The Effects of Public Opinion

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the circumstances that lead to public opinion affecting policy
• Compare the effects of public opinion on government branches and figures
• Identify situations that cause conflicts in public opinion

Public opinion polling is prevalent even outside election season. Are politicians and leaders listening to these polls, or is there some other reason for them? Some believe the increased collection of public opinion is due to growing support of delegate representation. The theory of delegate representation assumes the politician is in office to be the voice of the people. 90 If voters want the legislator to vote for legalizing marijuana, for example, the legislator should vote to legalize marijuana. Legislators or candidates who believe in delegate representation may poll the public before an important vote comes up for debate in order to learn what the public desires them to do.

Others believe polling has increased because politicians, like the president, operate in permanent campaign mode. To continue contributing money, supporters must remain happy and convinced the politician is listening to them. Even if the elected official does not act in a manner consistent with the polls, they can mollify everyone by explaining the reasons behind the vote. 91

Regardless of why the polls are taken, studies have not clearly shown whether the branches of government consistently act on them. Some branches appear to pay closer attention to public opinion than other branches, but events, time periods, and politics may change the way an individual or a branch of government ultimately reacts.

PUBLIC OPINION AND ELECTIONS

Elections are the events on which opinion polls have the greatest measured effect. Public opinion polls do more than show how we feel on issues or project who might win an election. The media use public opinion polls to decide which candidates are ahead of the others and therefore of interest to voters and worthy of interview. From the moment President Obama was inaugurated for his second term, speculation began about who would run in the 2016 presidential election. Within a year, potential candidates were being ranked and compared by a number of newspapers. 92 The speculation included favorability poll s on Hillary Clinton , which measured how positively voters felt about her as a candidate. The media deemed these polls important because they showed Clinton as the frontrunner for the Democrats in the next election. 93

During presidential primary season, we see examples of the bandwagon effect , in which the media pays more attention to candidates who poll well during the fall and the first few primaries. Bill Clinton was nicknamed the “Comeback Kid” in 1992, after he placed second in the New Hampshire primary despite accusations of adultery with Gennifer Flowers. The media’s attention on Clinton gave him the momentum to make it through the rest of the primary season, ultimately winning the Democratic nomination and the presidency.

Link to Learning

Wondering how your favorite candidate is doing in the polls? The site RealClearPolitics tracks a number of major polling sources on the major elections, including the presidential and Senate elections.

Polling is also at the heart of horserace coverage , in which, just like an announcer at the racetrack, the media calls out every candidate’s move throughout the presidential campaign. It often includes near-constant reporting on polls (some of which have questionable validity), accompanied by commentary from election experts or spokespeople for the candidates. Sound bites, tweets, and video of campaign stops are frequently integrated into this somewhat surface-level reporting. Horserace coverage can be neutral, positive, or negative, depending upon what polls or facts are covered ( Figure 6.16 ). During the 2012 presidential election, the Pew Research Center found that both Mitt Romney and President Obama received more negative than positive horserace coverage, with Romney’s growing more negative as he fell in the polls. 94 Horserace coverage is often criticized for its lack of depth; the stories skip over the candidates’ issue positions, voting histories, and other facts that would help voters make an informed decision. Yet, horserace coverage is popular because the public is always interested in who will win, and it often makes up a third or more of news stories about the election. 95 Exit polls, taken the day of the election, are the last election polls conducted by the media. Announced results of these surveys can deter voters from going to the polls if they believe the election has already been decided.

Finding a Middle Ground

Should exit polls be banned.

Exit polling seems simple. An interviewer stands at a polling place on Election Day and asks people how they voted. But the reality is different. Pollsters must select sites and voters carefully to ensure a representative and random poll. Some people refuse to talk and others may lie. The demographics of the polled population may lean more towards one party than another. Absentee and early voters cannot be polled. Despite these setbacks, exit polls are extremely interesting and controversial, because they provide early information about which candidate is ahead.

In 1985, a so-called gentleman’s agreement between the major networks and Congress kept exit poll results from being announced before a state’s polls closed. 96 This tradition has largely been upheld, with most media outlets waiting until 7 p.m. or later to disclose a state’s returns. Internet and cable media, however, have not always kept to the agreement. Sources like Matt Drudge have been accused of reporting early, and sometimes incorrect, exit poll results.

On one hand, delaying results may be the right decision. Studies suggest that exit polls can affect voter turnout. Reports of close races may bring additional voters to the polls, whereas apparent landslides may prompt people to stay home. Other studies note that almost anything, including bad weather and lines at polling places, dissuades voters. Ultimately, it appears exit poll reporting affects turnout by up to 5 percent. 97

On the other hand, limiting exit poll results means major media outlets lose out on the chance to share their carefully collected data, leaving small media outlets able to provide less accurate, more impressionistic results. And few states are affected anyway, since the media invest only in those where the election is close. Finally, an increasing number of voters are now voting up to two weeks early, and these numbers are updated daily without controversy.

What do you think? Should exit polls be banned? Why or why not?

Public opinion polls also affect how much money candidates receive in campaign donations. Donors assume public opinion polls are accurate enough to determine who the top two to three primary candidates will be, and they give money to those who do well. Candidates who poll at the bottom will have a hard time collecting donations, increasing the odds that they will continue to do poorly. This was apparent in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Bernie Sanders , Hillary Clinton , and Martin O’Malley each campaigned in the hope of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. In June 2015, 75 percent of Democrats likely to vote in their state primaries said they would vote for Clinton, while 15 percent of those polled said they would vote for Sanders. Only 2 percent said they would vote for O’Malley. 98 During this same period, Clinton raised $47 million in campaign donations, Sanders raised $15 million, and O’Malley raised $2 million. 99 By September 2015, 23 percent of likely Democratic voters said they would vote for Sanders, 100 and his summer fundraising total increased accordingly. 101

Presidents running for reelection also must perform well in public opinion polls, and being in office may not provide an automatic advantage. Americans often think about both the future and the past when they decide which candidate to support. 102 They have three years of past information about the sitting president, so they can better predict what will happen if the incumbent is reelected. That makes it difficult for the president to mislead the electorate. Voters also want a future that is prosperous. Not only should the economy look good, but citizens want to know they will do well in that economy. 103 For this reason, daily public approval polls sometimes act as both a referendum of the president and a predictor of success.

PUBLIC OPINION AND GOVERNMENT

The relationship between public opinion polls and government action is murkier than that between polls and elections. Like the news media and campaign staffers, members of the three branches of government are aware of public opinion. But do politicians use public opinion polls to guide their decisions and actions?

The short answer is “sometimes.” The public is not perfectly informed about politics, so politicians realize public opinion may not always be the right choice. Yet many political studies, from the American Voter in the 1920s to the American Voter Revisited in the 2000s, have found that voters behave rationally despite having limited information. Individual citizens do not take the time to become fully informed about all aspects of politics, yet their collective behavior and the opinions they hold as a group make sense. They appear to be informed just enough, using preferences like their political ideology and party membership, to make decisions and hold politicians accountable during an election year.

Overall, the collective public opinion of a country changes over time, even if party membership or ideology does not change dramatically. As James Stimson’s prominent study found, the public’s mood, or collective opinion, can become more or less liberal from decade to decade. While the initial study on public mood revealed that the economy has a profound effect on American opinion, 104 further studies have gone beyond to determine whether public opinion, and its relative liberalness, in turn affect politicians and institutions. This idea does not argue that opinion never affects policy directly, rather that collective opinion also affects the politician’s decisions on policy. 105

Individually, of course, politicians cannot predict what will happen in the future or who will oppose them in the next few elections. They can look to see where the public is in agreement as a body. If public mood changes, the politicians may change positions to match the public mood. The more savvy politicians look carefully to recognize when shifts occur. When the public is more or less liberal, the politicians may make slight adjustments to their behavior to match. Politicians who frequently seek to win office, like House members, will pay attention to the long- and short-term changes in opinion. By doing this, they will be less likely to lose on Election Day. 106 Presidents and justices, on the other hand, present a more complex picture.

Public opinion of the president is different from public opinion of Congress. Congress is an institution of 535 members, and opinion polls look at both the institution and its individual members. The president is both a person and the head of an institution. The media pays close attention to any president’s actions, and the public is generally well informed and aware of the office and its current occupant. Perhaps this is why public opinion has an inconsistent effect on presidents’ decisions. As early as Franklin D. Roosevelt ’s administration in the 1930s, presidents have regularly polled the public, and since Richard Nixon ’s term (1969–1974), they have admitted to using polling as part of the decision-making process.

Presidential responsiveness to public opinion has been measured in a number of ways, each of which tells us something about the effect of opinion. One study examined whether presidents responded to public opinion by determining how often they wrote amicus briefs and asked the court to affirm or reverse cases. It found that the public’s liberal (or non-liberal) mood had an effect, causing presidents to pursue and file briefs in different cases. 107 But another author found that the public’s level of liberalness is ignored when conservative presidents, such as Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush , are elected and try to lead. In one example, our five most recent presidents’ moods varied from liberal to non-liberal, while public sentiment stayed consistently liberal. 108 While the public supported liberal approaches to policy, presidential action varied from liberal to non-liberal.

Overall, it appears that presidents try to move public opinion towards personal positions rather than moving themselves towards the public’s opinion. 109 If presidents have enough public support, they use their level of public approval indirectly as a way to get their agenda passed. Immediately following Inauguration Day, for example, the president enjoys the highest level of public support for implementing campaign promises. This is especially true if the president has a mandate , which is more than half the popular vote. Barack Obama ’s recent 2008 victory was a mandate with 52.9 percent of the popular vote and 67.8 percent of the Electoral College vote. 110 In contrast, President Donald Trump’s victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was a closer contest. While Clinton outdistanced him by 2.9 million votes nationally, after narrowly winning several states, Trump won a comfortable majority in the Electoral College. By the above definition, Democratic nominee Joe Biden's win over President Trump in 2020 was a mandate. Biden garnered 51.3 percent of the total votes cast, against Trump's 47 percent, and captured 306 Electoral College votes, winning by the same comfortable margin that Trump had four years earlier.

When presidents have high levels of public approval, they are likely to act quickly and try to accomplish personal policy goals. They can use their position and power to focus media attention on an issue. This is sometimes referred to as the bully pulpit approach. The term “bully pulpit” was coined by President Theodore Roosevelt , who believed the presidency commanded the attention of the media and could be used to appeal directly to the people. Roosevelt used his position to convince voters to pressure Congress to pass laws.

Increasing partisanship has made it more difficult for presidents to use their power to get their own preferred issues through Congress, however, especially when the president’s party is in the minority in Congress. 111 For this reason, modern presidents may find more success in using their popularity to increase media and social media attention on an issue. Even if the president is not the reason for congressional action, they can cause the attention that leads to change. 112

Presidents may also use their popularity to ask the people to act. In October 2015, following a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, President Obama gave a short speech from the West Wing of the White House ( Figure 6.17 ). After offering his condolences and prayers to the community, he remarked that prayers and condolences were no longer enough, and he called on citizens to push Congress for a change in gun control laws. President Obama had proposed gun control reform following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, but it did not pass Congress. This time, the president asked citizens to use gun control as a voting issue and push for reform via the ballot box.

In some instances, presidents may appear to directly consider public opinion before acting or making decisions. In 2013, President Obama announced that he was considering a military strike on Syria in reaction to the Syrian government’s illegal use of sarin gas on its own citizens. Despite agreeing that this chemical attack on the Damascan suburbs was a war crime, the public was against U.S. involvement. Forty-eight percent of respondents said they opposed airstrikes, and only 29 percent were in favor. Democrats were especially opposed to military intervention. 113 President Obama changed his mind and ultimately allowed Russian president Vladimir Putin to negotiate Syria’s surrender of its chemical weapons.

However, further examples show that presidents do not consistently listen to public opinion. After taking office in 2009, President Obama did not order the closing of Guantanamo Bay prison, even though his proposal to do so had garnered support during the 2008 election. President Bush , despite growing public disapproval for the war in Iraq, did not end military support in Iraq after 2006. And President Bill Clinton , whose White House pollsters were infamous for polling on everything, sometimes ignored the public if circumstances warranted. 114 In 1995, despite public opposition, Clinton guaranteed loans for the Mexican government to help the country out of financial insolvency. He followed this decision with many speeches to help the American public understand the importance of stabilizing Mexico’s economy. Individual examples like these make it difficult to persuasively identify the direct effects of public opinion on the presidency.

While presidents have at most only two terms to serve and work, members of Congress can serve as long as the public returns them to office. We might think that for this reason public opinion is important to representatives and senators, and that their behavior, such as their votes on domestic programs or funding, will change to match the expectation of the public. In a more liberal time, the public may expect to see more social programs. In a non-liberal time, the public mood may favor austerity, or decreased government spending on programs. Failure to recognize shifts in public opinion may lead to a politician’s losing the next election. 115

House of Representatives members, with a two-year term, have a more difficult time recovering from decisions that anger local voters. And because most representatives continually fundraise, unpopular decisions can hurt their campaign donations. For these reasons, it seems representatives should be susceptible to polling pressure. Yet one study, by James Stimson, found that the public mood does not directly affect elections, and shifts in public opinion do not predict whether a House member will win or lose. These elections are affected by the president on the ticket, presidential popularity (or lack thereof) during a midterm election, and the perks of incumbency, such as name recognition and media coverage. In fact, a later study confirmed that the incumbency effect is highly predictive of a win, and public opinion is not. 116 In spite of this, we still see policy shifts in Congress, often matching the policy preferences of the public. When the shifts happen within the House, they are measured by the way members vote. The study’s authors hypothesize that House members alter their votes to match the public mood, perhaps in an effort to strengthen their electoral chances. 117

The Senate is quite different from the House. Senators do not enjoy the same benefits of incumbency, and they win reelection at lower rates than House members. Yet, they do have one advantage over their colleagues in the House: Senators hold six-year terms, which gives them time to engage in fence-mending to repair the damage from unpopular decisions. In the Senate, Stimson’s study confirmed that opinion affects a senator’s chances at reelection, even though it did not affect House members. Specifically, the study shows that when public opinion shifts, fewer senators win reelection. Thus, when the public as a whole becomes more or less liberal, new senators are elected. Rather than the senators shifting their policy preferences and voting differently, it is the new senators who change the policy direction of the Senate. 118

Beyond voter polls, congressional representatives are also very interested in polls that reveal the wishes of interest groups and businesses. If AARP , one of the largest and most active groups of voters in the United States, is unhappy with a bill, members of the relevant congressional committees will take that response into consideration. If the pharmaceutical or oil industry is unhappy with a new patent or tax policy, its members’ opinions will have some effect on representatives’ decisions, since these industries contribute heavily to election campaigns.

The website of the Policy Agendas Project details a National Science Foundation-funded policy project to provide data on public opinion, presidential public approval, and a variety of governmental measures of activity. All data are coded by policy topic, so you can look for trends in a policy topic of interest to you to see whether government attention tracks with public opinion.

There is some disagreement about whether the Supreme Court follows public opinion or shapes it. The lifetime tenure the justices enjoy was designed to remove everyday politics from their decisions, protect them from swings in political partisanship, and allow them to choose whether and when to listen to public opinion. More often than not, the public is unaware of the Supreme Court’s decisions and opinions. When the justices accept controversial cases, the media tune in and ask questions, raising public awareness and affecting opinion. But do the justices pay attention to the polls when they make decisions?

Studies that look at the connection between the Supreme Court and public opinion are contradictory. Early on, it was believed that justices were like other citizens: individuals with attitudes and beliefs who would be affected by political shifts. 119 Later studies argued that Supreme Court justices rule in ways that maintain support for the institution. Instead of looking at the short term and making decisions day to day, justices are strategic in their planning and make decisions for the long term. 120

Other studies have revealed a more complex relationship between public opinion and judicial decisions, largely due to the difficulty of measuring where the effect can be seen. Some studies look at the number of reversals taken by the Supreme Court, which are decisions with which the Court overturns the decision of a lower court. In one study, the authors found that public opinion slightly affects cases accepted by the justices. 121 In a study looking at how often the justices voted liberally on a decision, a stronger effect of public opinion was revealed. 122

Whether the case or court is currently in the news may also matter. A study found that if the majority of Americans agree on a policy or issue before the court, the court’s decision is likely to agree with public opinion. 123 A second study determined that public opinion is more likely to affect ignored cases than heavily reported ones. 124 In these situations, the court was also more likely to rule with the majority opinion than against it. For example, in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), a majority of the justices decided that ceremonial prayer before a town meeting was not a violation of the Establishment Clause. 125 The fact that 78 percent of U.S. adults recently said religion is fairly to very important to their lives 126 and 61 percent supported prayer in school 127 may explain why public support for the Supreme Court did not fall after this decision. 128

Overall, however, it is clear that public opinion has a less powerful effect on the courts than on the other branches and on politicians. 129 Perhaps this is due to the lack of elections or justices’ lifetime tenure, or perhaps we have not determined the best way to measure the effects of public opinion on the Court.

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19 Critical Perspectives on Public Opinion

Susan Herbst is President of the University of Connecticut and Professor of Political Science.

• Published: 02 September 2011
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This chapter tries to present some background to the understanding of critical-theoretical views of public opinion, examining the major contributions since the nineteenth century, such as Karl Marx's writings on public sentiment. It then introduces the signature ideas of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Blumer, Antonio Gramsci, Jean Baudrillard, and Pierre Bourdieu, and ends with some thoughts on the future and value of critical work in public opinion, in light of the Internet.

“ Public opinion ” is one of the most nebulous concepts in democratic theory, and it is this haziness that has drawn the best scholars of many generations to it. Although the notion of public opinion dates back to the ancient Greek city states, where the popular sentiment was debated, persuaded through rhetoric, and expressed at Hellenic festivals, we typically trace its contemporary origins to the Enlightenment. It was in the heady days of literary and philosophical argument before the French Revolution that statesmen and writers began to think of a distinct public, one separable in thought and feeling from the king and his court. During this period, Jürgen Habermas ( 1989 ) has argued, both public opinion and a “public sphere”—an arena for talk and critique of the Crown—were born. While not everyone agrees with the particulars of Habermas's social history, there is consensus among scholars that something profound changed during the period of the great democratic revolutions. The questions for critical theorists, typically coming from a leftist perspective, center around the nature of that eighteenth‐century change, and how “the public” evolved from that period forward.

This chapter is not a comprehensive review of all critical perspectives on public opinion; that is a book-length project, or better yet, an encyclopedic website that would need constant updating. There are orthodox, Marxian views of public opinion, frozen in time and place. But there are also evolving leftist views of public opinion appearing as new governments emerge throughout the world. In fact, every new democracy or new administration, even if authoritarian, must contend with public opinion somehow. We constantly discover unique conceptions, unusual measures, and novel approaches to both opinion expression and control. In any case, my goal here is to provide students of politics with some background for understanding critical-theoretical views of public opinion, touring through the major contributions since the nineteenth century, when Karl Marx first put pen to paper. After a look at Marx's writings on public sentiment, I will introduce the signature ideas of Antonio Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard, and Herbert Blumer, before a few concluding thoughts on the value and future of critical work in the area of public opinion, in light of the Internet.

Three notes of preface. First: critical theory is unlike many frameworks used in the area of politics and public opinion because it fuses understanding and action (praxis). Those who ascribe to critical theory, as their tool for analysis, very often interweave observation with normative judgments and even strategic argumentation—how citizens, leaders, journalists, or teachers should act. Theory and practice are fundamentally conflated in classical Marxism and its offspring, and while this certainly does not distinguish it from all other theoretical frameworks, it must be understood, particularly by those trained as positivists. Many contemporary critical theorists would argue that American social science also contains strong normative biases, and pushes us to certain types of action (or inaction), so is just as deeply “political” and ideological. Yet, they would note, critical theorists are at least cognizant and transparent about their normative beliefs, something other scholars should aim for as well.

Second, one of the most aggravating problems for critical theorists has been what they see as the damage to Marxist and neo-Marxist thought caused by the Soviet Union (the first nation to formally adopt Marxism as a national creed), then later by China, North Korea, and a variety of other repressive regimes. Critical theory should not be confused with dictatorships or totalitarianism, although such regimes have certainly plucked parts of Marxism for their own nefarious purposes of social control. As difficult as it may be, critical theorists ask that—in the discussion of scholarly ideas—interested students evaluate their constructs without reference to the distortion that Marxism has often undergone in international politics.

Finally, while I appreciate the tremendous contributions of critical theory to the study of public opinion, I am not a critical theorist. It is my hope that, in bringing such a rich and complex set of ideas to this volume, I have done justice to the paradigm, and have not offended the sensibilities of those who have devoted their scholarship to critical theory in its myriad forms. For those interested in a more comprehensive review, from one of the premier scholars in the area, it is best to consult David Held's introductory volume (Held 1980 ; or the regularly updated web resource The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ).

Orthodox Marxism and Public Opinion

Karl Marx and his colleague Friedrich Engels did not use the phrase “public opinion” in any sustained fashion over the decades of their collaboration in the nineteenth century. Marx certainly knew the phrase and it was in common usage, but to simply analyze his mentions—if they could be gathered systematically—would be a worthless exercise: he had complex views of public opinion that are wedded to ideas about human nature, social life, and revolution. While this may be irritating to the historian of public opinion, no understanding of classical Marxian views is possible without a broader study of his theoretical system.

Long before Marx wrote of politics, economics, and social life in the nineteenth century, it was fashionable for theorists of all stripes to opine on the fundamental characteristics of human nature. Often, the discussion was oriented around how humans might be differentiated from animals—what made them unique beings. The great political giants who preceded Marx—Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and others—speculated on the essence of man, and how this essence is expressed in private and public settings. From Machiavelli's fearful and weak inhabitants of Florence, to Rousseau's primitives, we have a full range of possible humans, described in colorful detail. Marx wrote very much in this tradition, and felt forced to do so: how can one build a theory of society and its future without some attention to the nature of its citizens? With regard to public opinion, Marx's ideas about human nature are his guide, although he did not speak to this linkage as directly as we might hope.

Marx thought people capable of learning, of changing, and of forming opinions. But they are material beings, very closely tied to their surroundings and the networks they find themselves in. He and so many who ascribe to more conventional forms of Marxism worry most about the control of public opinion—indeed the squashing of public opinion—more than its formation. Marx questioned whether, in a capitalist society, with working people oppressed by industry and the need to stay alive, citizens had any voice at all. Human nature, and the opinions people could offer, are crushed by those who control the means and forces of production. He wrote, famously, with Engels, in The German Ideology in 1846:

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.…[The ruling class] rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age… (Marx and Engels 1984 , 64)

This notion of public opinion—as an inchoate and suppressed phenomenon—is part of the intricate model of change that Marx proposed. People are unable to express themselves; their opinions are unwanted and indeed irrelevant, given their lack of power. The ruling class—factory owners, statesmen, religious leaders—were adept at suppressing public opinion, he argued. At the least, public sentiment was an annoyance to them, and at the most, dangerous and revolutionary. In classical Marxism, the “base” is economics (the forces and relations of production) while public opinion is part of the “superstructure”—the world of ideas (art, literature, politics, law, culture) determined entirely by the base. Base and superstructure are correlated and coordinated. Put another way, public opinion—in Marx's world view—derives from economics and ownership of property, as there is no other way for it to evolve and take form.

Marx's work is complex and subtle, but is often expressed as mechanical in nature, because there are so many “moving parts” that fit together. One of the reasons his œuvre is considered a masterpiece of social theory—by theorists of all ideological persuasions—is its grandeur and precision, like the innards of a clock. It would be absurd to apply his ideas directly to contemporary Western public opinion, given the changes since he wrote (for example, the development of labor unions, of democratic rights, or the emergence of race and ethnicity as rivals to social class in personal identity), but Marx outlines the fundamental elements of “hegemonic” or critical theory of today. Contemporary neo-Marxian theorists—while they often reject significant parts of orthodox Marxism—would contend that public opinion is still very much a reflection of an elite class in American politics. The complexity and nuances associated with this reflective process, where superstructure “matches” the base, is much greater in current theory than in the nineteenth century, but the lineage to classical Marxism is clear.

Marxism Revised: Gramsci, the Frankfurt School

In the early part of the twentieth century, Antonio Gramsci, the Italian journalist and political activist, was one of many thinkers unhappy with the deterministic nature of conventional Marxism (base determines superstructure), although they shared the concerns for poverty and the effects of industrialization that inspired Marx's work. Gramsci believed that, while of course economic structure was essential in understanding law and culture, people were effective agents who could make gradual change in culture and therefore break out of repression and alienation. Revolutionary action by the proletariat, action that overthrows all social arrangements in a radical moment of change, was not the only way to achieve transformation. In fact, Gramsci argued, intellectuals on the left—putting aside the proletarian underclass—could themselves break the hold of class domination and free all people from oppressive conditions.

Gramsci's work is intricate, although not always consistent or disciplined in the ways that Marx's often was. He wrote under miserable conditions during the last years of his life, from an Italian prison, where he was being punished for his radical political writings. (He was jailed in 1926 and died there eleven years later, all the while suffering a variety of ailments.) The Prison Notebooks , a compilation of his secret writing, did not appear to the world until after the Second World War. His views on the United States, Europe, labor movements, and of course Italian fascism are worth reading, but for our purposes in understanding public opinion, it is the notion of “hegemony” that stands out as most useful.

One of the “holes” in Marx's descriptions of the ruling class's stranglehold, which Gramsci tried to fill, is public opinion itself. How, one might ask of classical Marxism, does the ruling class force its ideas upon the working class, without guns, imprisonment, and constant physical threat? Why, if proletariat workers are so unhappy, do they stay put, failing to organize or initiate the overthrow of factory owners and oppressive governments? Gramsci argued that this control of societal ideas and ideals—norms, values, approaches, attitudes—is pursued with great intentionality by a regime through hegemony: the process of generating consent of the public through persuasion, the control of information, and the framing of social problems. Hegemony is the process by which, Gramsci argues, ruling class ideology becomes the “common sense” of any age. Oft-used examples of hegemony in the United States are “Horatio Alger” (or “rags to riches”) notions of how people attain personal success when they are born into poverty.

Is public opinion as gullible as Gramsci would have us believe? This is an open hypothesis, debated as fiercely in the twenty-first century as it was throughout the twentieth. Some scholars argue that media have the power to suppress ideas, and to encourage people to believe in notions that are counter to their best self-interests. Others have demonstrated that people are not Gramscian “sponges,” vulnerable to subtle ideologies that keep them down: they push back at ideas they disagree with, create their own media (websites, YouTube postings, etc.), and distrust conventional journalists and politicians. In any case, it is Gramsci who ignited these debates in earnest, long before the Internet, and there is no shortage of prominent scholars who see the media as a partner with government in controlling public opinion (for example, Entman 2004 ).

One last set of scholars to mention in the critical tradition, even more sophisticated in their views of culture and public opinion, are the group of German theorists called the Frankfurt School. These theorists, writing during the early to mid-twentieth century, brought a tremendous interest in mass media and public opinion to their work, blending it with their neo-Marxist sensibilities. They held diverse views, but all faced very real threats as Jews during the rise of the Nazis in mid-century. (While most of the group fled to the US, one of the most distinguished members of the Frankfurt School, Walter Benjamin, committed suicide before he could be captured at the Spanish border in 1940.)

Leaders of the Frankfurt School were shaped by their experiences with fascism and Nazism, and these painful trials added a new twist to their Marxism. In particular, they lost some hope in a revolution of the underclass, seeing how workers were so easily mobilized by the Nazis. They also watched with horror as Hitler used the media—radio, newspaper, and film—to pursue his ideals and the destruction of the European Jews. But Frankfurt School theorists wrote about media and Western societies more generally, with a real interest in hegemony in the American media and within corporate capitalism. In their famous 1947 essay “The Culture Industry,” Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno manage to discuss interlocking corporate boards, market research, and the banal, empty nature of media production simultaneously:

[The broadcasting industry, electrical industry, banks, and other industries] are in such close contact that the extreme concentration of mental forces allows demarcation lines between different firms and technical branches to be ignored. The ruthless unity in the culture industry is evidence of what will happen in politics. Marked differentiations such as those of A and B films, or of stories in magazines in different price ranges, depend not so much on subject matter as on classifying, organizing, and labeling consumers.…The public is catered for with a hierarchical range of mass-produced products of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of complete quantification.…Consumers appear as statistics on research organization charts, and are divided by income groups into red, green, and blue areas; the technique is that used for any type of propaganda.(1987, 123)

Horkheimer and Adorno believed people to be greatly susceptible to media persuasion and therefore ruling class ideology. Their views were in keeping with general neo-Marxist thought on the lack of resistance to media or the broader “culture industry” (media, art, music, and other producers of news and entertainment).

The Frankfurt School theorists differed a bit; Benjamin in particular stood alone on some aesthetic matters, Herbert Marcuse brought sexuality into the study of capitalism, for example. But they were all concerned with the power of hegemony and the dearth of cognitive tools people have to resist it as they form opinions about politics, culture, economics, work, family, and social structure.

Jürgen Habermas, one of the few remaining descendants of the School, has argued that there was once a lively and less repressive public sphere—one that had emerged in the eighteenth century. He posits that we have seen a dramatic decline in free critical discourse since that time. In his early work, Habermas described the raucous and stimulating debate of salons and coffee houses, the appearance of independent newspapers, and in general, an electrifying and bold sensibility on the part of a rising, opinionated bourgeois class, ready to question ruling regimes. This public sphere starts to dissipate in the late nineteenth century, and the decline accelerates in the twentieth century, according to Habermas. He holds the media and attendant commercialization, particularly the formation of conglomerates and the ethic of consumerism in mass society, responsible for the decline of important, rich public debate on issues. This is very much in the spirit of his teachers, but Habermas, in his later work, did hold out some hopes for a greater spirit of public communication, one that might bring back rational and open discourse, despite the limits of the media. While debate around Habermas's public sphere decline hypothesis remains unresolved (some argue that the lively sphere of the eighteenth century was not quite as he painted), he did refocus many critical theorists on the possibilities of public opinion in a democracy, real and imagined.

Herbert Blumer and His Critical Legacy

The Frankfurt School made its impact largely on the study of culture, in philosophy, art history, literary criticism, and sociology, but had little effect on American political science or public opinion research. In fact, I doubt that, even today, many students of American politics are versed in critical theory beyond a surface understanding of Habermas's decline argument. In sociology, however, there has been a steady tradition of critical thinking about public opinion and opinion polling, led by Herbert Blumer in the early twentieth century.

While there was skepticism toward polls during the early decades of the twentieth century due to mis-predictions of the Literary Digest and then the faulty 1948 prediction that President Truman would be defeated by Thomas E. Dewey, this skepticism proved to be temporary, and the polling industry flourished. George Gallup, Sr., and other leading pollsters argued hard that survey research and polling results were synonymous with “public opinion” itself. The 1940s and 1950s were decades of great acceleration in the evolving survey research industry, within the academy and beyond. But in 1947 Herbert Blumer, a professor at the University of Chicago and one of the most distinguished sociologists in the nation, was asked to make observations at the meetings of the American Sociological Society. (This lecture was published the next year, in the premier journal, the American Sociological Review .) In this essay, still the most thoughtful critique of survey research we have, Blumer argued that polling simply could not serve as a measure of public opinion.

His critique was not directly rooted in Marxist theory, but came from the direction of mainstream empirical and cultural sociology. It included multiple sparring points. He worried that poll results were aggregations of individual opinions that did not map onto the existing power structure: interest groups, ethnic enclaves, and powerful people make things happen in politics, and are the public opinion of interest to any social scientist. Artificial publics—hundreds of anonymous, unorganized people, not related to each other in any way—have no place in social analysis. The participants in the sample survey do not “act” as bodies, and are simply a faceless American cross-section, suspended in time, never to be gathered again. How could survey results possibly be thought of as a meaningful public opinion?

Blumer saw real, empirical public opinion formation as a process driven by groups and group interests. These are “functional” groups, related to class, race, ethnicity, policy interest, religion, and other binding characteristics. Not only does polling ignore this social infrastructure, he argues; polling outright defies and crushes it, and therefore can only present us with the most unsophisticated of political analyses. Polls provide an illusion; they don't produce important, predictive data about the issue dynamics within a complex society. In addition, society is fluid, and so “sampling” it, no matter how carefully conducted, is also illusory:

In human society, particularly in modern society, we are confronted with intricate complexes of moving relations which are roughly recognizable as systems, even though loose systems. Such a loose system is too complicated, too encumbered in detail and too fast moving to be described in any one of its given “cycles” of operation adequately and faithfully.…to know what is going on [with a national policy issue], particularly to know what is likely to go on in the latter stages, we have to dip in here and there. The problems of where to dip in, how to dip in, and how far to dip in [are of great concern]. (1948, 549)

In the clash of opinions and groups, powerless and mighty, Blumer argues, we find the true texture of public opinion—the public opinion worth studying. Public opinion has a character, and is tethered to a nation in progress. As he famously stated it: “The formation of public opinion occurs as a function of a society in operation” (1948, 544).

Surprisingly, not long after Blumer had been pronounced intellectually dead in the 1980s by a variety of scholars (Converse 1987 ), the arrival of the Internet—the most important change in our communication environment since the introduction of television—led us directly back to Blumer. I would argue that Blumer is more right than ever before: public opinion is most productively defined as a phenomenon in motion, replete with power dynamics, social stratification, and most of all, conversation. If Blumer were alive today, he would view our blogs, webpages, and constant chatter as extraordinarily helpful in understanding public opinion. In fact, it is precisely the sort of textured discourse that is so superior to the aggregation of anonymous individuals gathered in our artificial “publics” produced by polls.

Polls and the Existence of Public Opinion

Blumer likely influenced a number of cultural theorists in the field. One of these was Pierre Bourdieu, who spent his career exploring aspects of social class development, art, and culture in Western democracies. In 1979, in what is the boldest critique of public opinion polling since Blumer's 1948 article, Bourdieu goes a step further than his predecessor, arguing that “public opinion” is itself a fiction. Public opinion, Bourdieu posits, is a reification, something that seems concrete because of the ways we discuss it, write about it, and measure it. Most centrally, public opinion is an illusion created by polling and pollsters, a byproduct of an industry, but not a phenomenon that drives (or should drive) social analysis or social action.

Bourdieu makes three arguments in his essay “Public Opinion Does Not Exist,” attacking the basic assumptions of polls. He asks first whether people typically have crystallized opinions, at the ready for inquiring pollsters. This is a vital point, especially given what we know about public ignorance about policy issues in American politics. It is the case that most good surveyors give respondents “don't know” or “no opinion” options. And others have developed scales to test knowledge levels on a subject, while asking opinions. These techniques help some, in determining whether people bring an appropriate understanding to the formation of their opinions. But it is also the case that most people—even those citizens who keep up with the news—have not necessarily thought through their views, or thought about them in the way that a pollster asks.

In response to this critique, many pollsters are resigned to the general problem; they survey the people as they find them. But dismissing Bourdieu in this fashion is not particularly responsible, since the results of issue polls are used—by statesmen, interest group leaders, lobbyists, and others—to argue that “the public” feels one way or another on a policy issue. Are they valid statistics, when they wrongly assume an informed and often even sophisticated respondent? Quantitative data can often feel very “factual” and authoritative, but Bourdieu wonders how steady the ground is beneath the aggregated opinions.

More troubling is the problem that Blumer also stated in the 1940s: polls assume that all opinions have equal weight. This simply cannot be the case: we have the varying information levels just noted, and so some opinions are shakier than others, or less intense than others. But there are power dynamics, more importantly. So what if 75 percent of the American people are opposed to a particular foreign military venture? If powerful members of Congress or a president seek to go forth with it, the opinion data are meaningless in trying to understand the driver of that policy. What have we gained through polling, when the people who make the decisions are not accountable to the polls in any fashion?

Finally, Bourdieu is troubled by the questions that pollsters and surveyors often ask. Why are these the important issues of the day? How did pollsters become the arbiter of what to ask the public about, and how to do so? Again, American surveyors are ready with many answers: they stay attuned to public debate, to media, to politicians and leaders for guidance on what matters. But there is still the vexing problem of omission, and as many critical theorists have pointed out, “sins” of omission are just as problematic as sins of “commission.” Critical theorists and cultural sociologists implore us to study why certain things do not happen in society, why particular issues don't come up, and why some ideas just never seem to get debated or asked about in polls. Harking back to our earlier discussion of class, neo-Marxists would argue that social class and social stratification are among the least discussed issues in American politics. Everyone in America is seemingly “middle class” (as opposed to the United Kingdom, where class consciousness is everywhere in evidence). What is missing, and why it is missing, are the questions asked by the keenest critical theorists. All social scientists and humanists would do well to follow their lead, even if it takes them to different places intellectually.

One last twentieth‐century figure is worth mentioning here, likely the most controversial of all philosophers and scholars discussed above. Jean Baudrillard, postmodern theorist, posits that public opinion polls are fitting to the bizarre “hyper-reality” that we live in. His ideas—like many postmodern tenets—fly in the face of systems and ideologies like Marxism, or attempts to seek truth, such as modern scientific methods. Postmodernists are skeptical of all attempts to define reality, noting that experience varies from individual to individual, and we should question even our own perceptions. “Reality,” the postmodernists argue, is a creation of media, although typically unintentional, as there is no unified media organization point of view: culture is fragmented into flying bits that contradict each other but are bent on grabbing our attention. Postmodernism is, while certainly a critical theory, in great opposition to Marxism in particular. In general, hegemonic theorists find it empty, and of little value in their goals of correcting social injustice.

Baudrillard sees opinion polls as problematic, although not dreadfully harmful, and the general postmodern critique would be thus: polls do not represent truth because there is no true essence of public opinion. Media inform people (or not) and shape opinions, which pollsters then poll. So media and polling are in a sort of epistemological loop with each other, and the original “referent” is undeterminable in the wild, uncontrolled flow of ideas and signs. Put another way, postmodernists argue there is no “there there”: polls capture nothing but fleeting perceptions, and it's not clear that they are connected to anything but the culture industry that dominates human consciousness. Although the notion that culture is fragmented, and our existence is hyper-real, may have originated with postmodernists, they wrote during a period when television dominated our culture. What was to come—the Web, iPods, and TiVo, with all the chopped-up content flying—strengthens their arguments even further. It is indeed very difficult to trace patterns in human perception, and challenging to figure out what sort of reality exists beneath our mediated world.

The Internet Arrives

The premier critical theorists, the ones most cited and with the most profound impacts on contemporary theory—Marx, Gramsci, Bourdieu, in particular—wrote well before the appearance of interactive communication media. Marx saw no electronic media, and Baudrillard and Blumer worked in an age when newspapers and television were the dominant forces for the expression and assessment of public opinion. The Internet has transformed the communication environment, and this has made all theorizing—from all perspectives—far more difficult. Within the framework of critical theory, the easiest path to coping with the enormity of the Internet is likely to throw up one's hands and surrender to Baudrillard and the post-modernists: the Internet presents us with a morass, making it hard to find earnest, “real”, meaningful public opinion. We must live, albeit cynically, in a sea of referents, picking and choosing what feels genuine and meaningful to us. When truth becomes nearly impossible to discern, skeptical, playful indulgence in public discourse is the only way to survive, cognitively at least.

This sort of approach is anathema to classical Marxism and certainly to Gramscians or the Frankfurt School followers, no matter their worries about the abilities of the working class to avoid a hegemonic slumber. A key issue for critical theorists of today, who very much believe in reality and empirical truths, would be instead: does the access to and freedom of the Internet—the ability to post and read in most developed nations—enrich public expression for all? Or does the Internet as a communication technology simply reinforce the power structure that already exists, based on who owns media conglomerates and who has the time and resources to solidify an Internet presence?

These are difficult questions because the Internet is not a singular text or even a channel; it is an environment or realm that surrounds us. In addition, despite the tremendous efforts of advertisers, political activists, marketers, and others to track use of their websites, figuring out who is reading (and actually processing) web material is an elusive process. In the early days of the Web, the number of “hits” on an Internet site gave us some hope of measuring usage, but of course that is only a measure of exposure and does not measure learning or diffusion (e.g., printing out web material and sending it to friends, or clipping material and then distributing it through email).

Acknowledging these difficulties, and they are great, we can at least speculate a bit on public opinion and the Internet, from the posture of critical theory, although it takes us to different conclusions.

One tack might be to argue that truly strong Web presence is a function of capital. The slickest, most attractive, most frequently updated websites are those owned and operated by the major media organizations, corporations, and wealthy interest groups. At any one moment, the top 100 blogs include a variety of well-established media organization sites: CNN, the Huffington Post (a conglomeration of major news outlet stories), or the Los Angeles Times . 1 On the other hand, websites that emerge from far less powerful organizations appear as well (for example, Thinkprogress.org, a progressive site produced by the Center for American Progress, or Michelle Malkin's conservative blog, which did not begin its life backed by powerful conglomerates). The presence of grassroots sites, or those that began that way, does lead one to think that the Internet might dissipate or disrupt normal power dynamics, and therefore, the hegemony that critical theorists find crushes working‐class opinion. It is clear that, with some talent and perhaps not much by way of resources, a lone voice outside of the so-called “ruling class” can break through the clutter, even if temporarily.

And perhaps that is the central dynamic of worry to a critical theorist: the Internet is wide open in many ways, so all sorts of non-mainstream voices can in fact start blogs and sites without the traditionally high cost of establishing a newspaper, magazine, or television network. But, as the blog or site is discovered, it gets co-opted: a network or organization starts to support it or even buys it, taking away whatever subversive or interesting elements it may have had. Most problematic are powerful Internet providers such as Google (providing 63 percent of all Internet searches) that seem to just serve up information without bias, when they are in fact regulated:

“The idea that the user is sovereign has transformed the meaning of free speech,” [Columbia Professor Tim] Wu said enthusiastically about the Internet age. But Google is not just a neutral platform for sovereign users; it is also a company in the advertising and media business. In the future, Wu said, it might slant its search results to favor its own media applications or to bury its competitors. If Google allowed its search results to be biased for economic reasons, it would transform the way we think about Google as a neutral free-speech tool. The only editor is supposed to be a neutral algorithm. But that would make it all the more insidious if the search algorithm were to become biased. (Rosen 2008 )

Critical theorists would argue, in fact, that the demise of free speech—and therefore free expression of public opinion—is inevitable. On occasion, subversive elements appear—websites that have potential to truly disrupt normal power relations in a society—but they will be either bought, crushed, or toned down, just as these elements typically have been in the mass media throughout history. The “edgy” voices—those who question and disrupt—are censored or diminished somehow, whether Howard Stern (banished from free radio) or The Simpsons , where the subversive is typically undermined by a message about family values and conventionality.

As with any debate along these lines, only projects in content analysis—qualitative or quantitative—can track whether in fact content that challenges the powerful survives for very long on the Internet. Such empirical projects are far more complex than our past analyses of static media (a television show, a newspaper edition), since Internet content comes and goes, and we are all Wikipedia editors now. Without the tracking of ideas and sites, over multi-year periods, it will be impossible to support or refute the traditional critical theory hypotheses about public opinion. But it seems the only way to answer questions about the bounds of public expression at this moment.

One last intriguing note about the Internet and public opinion: it is a place where theory and praxis can meet, a vital desire of critical theorists. The Web enables more rhetorical activity than any communication technology has ever allowed in the history of human expression. Perhaps there are increasing limits to the expressive freedom we find currently on the Internet, and there is much to worry about. But at the moment, those who wish to connect with others, spread ideas, and get a sense of public opinion on any issue have a tool like no other. Facebook and other mechanisms for building community are spectacular improvements over phone calls, letter writing, and knocking on doors. Whether grassroots organizing becomes more effective, over the long run, is difficult to predict. We can hope that the Internet makes both public argument with those who oppose us, and organizing with those who think like us—across the ideological continuum—easier and more fulfilling.

Critical views of public opinion and opinion polling came most forcefully from the ideological left and from neo-Marxists in the twentieth century. But along with them, a variety of others—even many positivists—began to question the nature and value of “public opinion”, as well as the methodologies for studying it. For those of us studying public opinion in the twenty-first century, some of the criticisms are more relevant and useful than others. And some neo-Marxist ideas are simply entirely outdated given the evolution of capitalism, democracies, and media technology. Nonetheless, it behooves sophisticated scholars of public opinion to understand the lengthy history of critical work, and to use it where they can, to enrich their own projects. This sort of approach makes the study of an already complex idea like public opinion even more perplexing, but democratic thought deserves no less.

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The Public Opinion of the Citizens of the USA Essay

Introduction, iraq war polls, reference list.

Public opinion is considered to be extremely important in the modern world. It is impossible to imagine a democratic country which does not pay attention to the public opinion in the relation to a specific affair which concerns the whole society. Many different models have been used to make conclusions about the relation of the public opinion to the specific parameters and events in the society.

To consider this problem, a specific situation should be taken into account. One of the most crucial questions which has been bothering not only the USA but also the whole world is the problem devoted to the war in Iraq. Different people have various points of view regarding the situation. It is important to state the personal opinions of people in different years have been changing.

It may be predicted that the reasons for change in the public opinion are different, starting with those which have relation to the USA and the actions which are taken there and finishing with the actions which take place on the international arena and influence of the war on other spheres of the world life.

The main purpose of this article is to consider the public opinion of the citizens of the USA which has been changing from one year to another which are gathered in polls and review and analyzes those public opinion polls about the importance of the attitude “public preference” of citizens toward a specific public policy.

Public preference in thermostatic model

According to Soroka (2010) “the representation of the public opinion presupposes that the public actually notices and responds to what policy makers do” (22). Thus, from the first words it is seen that the actions taken by the government and the documents they accept as the legal influence public opinion. The change of the public preference may change either to the positive or negative opinion, like a thermostat.

Thus, the model which dwells upon the change of public opinion as a result of the changes the policymakers do is called thermostatic. The public preference for policy is different in different regions of the USA as the public preferred level is different as well.

People pay much attention to the laws and different policies which are accepted in the society, but at the same time people do not have the copies of those documents in their houses. Most people create their personal opinion on the basis of the public opinion and form their preference on the basis of the public preference. These processes are interconnected.

People are not predicted to have detailed information about the event as well as they are not predicted to have a stated and perfectly formulated opinion about some specific fact. Public is also not predicted to be aware of different actions held by the policy makers.

The only thing which is required is the changes of the public preference to the specific occasion with the change of some actions. Public opinion may become either negative or positive with the change either to the less or to more public preference.

Soroka (2010) has proven that the policy reacts to the policy change even though people do not read the entire documents or do not present while the specific events. The information flow plays an important role in the thermostatic model as it makes it possible for people to get to know something about the changes and identify their personal attitude to the change either positive or negative.

It may be stated that public creates its opinion not on the basis of the credible information they get from numerous sources, but on the basis of the feedback. Depending on the nature of the feedback, either positive or negative, public preference becomes either lower or higher.

But, even when a positive feedback is got, public opinion may change in different ways, either favorably or less supportive. The behavior of the political elites may become crucial in the decision.

When the opinion is created, public has an opportunity to response to the specific event and policy which had been accepted. There are two main ways for public response to the policy, namely elections (indirect) and the response of the politicians to the desires of the public (direct). These two kinds of public responses are closely related. People are not really interested in the way how their desires are going to be met.

They just want to respond express their opinion, response to the government reaction and get what they want. Thus, the theoretical information considered above may be easily related to the poll results about the war in Iraq and public opinion was created by mans of different information and feedback as well as the public preference changed with the change of the situation and policies.

Public opinion in different years

Dwelling upon public opinion about the war in Iraq in different years, it should be stated that the information has slight differences depending on the poll. The margin of error should be considered as ± 3 which corresponds to the norm.

Thus, here are the results considered by different research centers in different years in the relation to the war in Iraq. According to CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll , 74%of Americans thought that it was a right decision to start a military campaign in Iraq. 41% of people think the same in 2006.

According to Gallup poll, 23% of Americans consider a war in Iraq as a mistake in the beginning of 2003 while at the end of 2010 this number has increased significantly and now comprises about 55% of American population.

It should be noted that public opinion changed and public preference became less with some specific event, like tortures by US military, bombing of Golden Mosque in Samarra, surge and the beginning of presidential primaries (‘Big mistake’ 2010). All these events negatively influenced public preference to the war in Iraq.

The reaction of public in the relation to the staying of American troops in Iraq has been changing as well. In 2003 64% of Americans supported the idea to stay in Iraq until the situation there is stabilized. Only 47% of Americans thought the same in 2008 (‘Public Attitudes toward the War in Iraq’ 2008).

According to the research of NBC News/Wall Street Journal, 31% of Americans supported the additional sending of 21,500 troops to Iraq in 2007. His says that the general appreciation of the war is reduced.

More and more people begin to think that it is impossible to implement democracy in the country and there is no need to stay there, otherwise, the USA has some different reasons to send more troops to Iraq and stay there as long as possible.

The attitude of public to financial problems has not changed much. According to the results of ABC News/Washington Post (2009) in 2007 40% of respondents considered it financially profitable; in 2009 only 39% thought that the war worth those financial costs.

Comparison and contrast of public opinion in different years

Having considered numerous polls related to the public opinion about the Iraq War since 2003 up to present times, it has been found out that it was changing. According to the summary of the poll provided by the USA Today, Benedetto (2003) states that people in the USA supported the fighting which began in Iraq.

“The news from Iraq is mostly bad, and criticism of President Bush from Democrats is relentless. But nearly two-thirds — 63% — of Americans say the war in Iraq was worth fighting” (Benedetto 2003). The information in the polls states that in January about 53% of respondents said that the situation was worth going to war and in August this number increased up to 63% (USATODAY/CNN/Gallup poll results 2005).

The positive opinion about the war during this period may be explained by the public mood. The events of September 11, 2001 were still fresh in mind.

The inability to apply democracy in Iraq and to avoid blind submission to the desire of one specific person were also important for the Americans as the nation which respected democracy most of all. The promotion of the idea of the war also influenced the population in the USA. Moreover, the idea of the war against terrorism was proclaimed.

Providing the research in 2005, the following results were considered. 41% stated that the war was a right thing and 55% of respondents wanted American troops stayed out in Iraq. At the same time 59% of respondents stated that the war did not worth its costs. According to another statistics 64% sated that financial profitableness of the war was not confirmed.

It is possible to conclude that people reconsidered something, the policies which were adopted and the actions which were taken made some people realize that the war was not exactly what was happening. The public preference reduced, still, the change was not so great, more people still considered the war a right action (Roberts 2005).

Furthermore, the referendum was expected at that time and most Americans did not consider Iraq secure enough to take it up. All these policies and events influenced the public preference. People began to understand that the inability of the USA to lead a quick war influenced them directly. The financial costs were really great and the USA could not state firmly that they would be able to reach their purposes.

Thus, it is possible to conclude that Americans wanted for the Iraq war to finish as soon as possible in 2005, while in 2003 it was impossible to state that the USA would have this opinion in the nearest future.

Considering the data collected while 2007, it may be noticed that “Americans now view the war in Iraq more negatively than at any time since the invasion more than four years ago” (Sussman 2007). Considering the statistical information, only 35% of respondents considered the war in Iraq a right thing, others believed that it was a mistake. 47% of Americans were sure that the efforts the US government provided were useless.

Bush had sent troops to Iraq in 2007, but 51% of Americans said that this was useless. Those troops could not change anything but the financial support of the war increased. Furthermore, Americans began to say about the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq as one of the most reasonable decision the president could make. Only 20% of respondents saw the positive effect of the increase of the US troops in the USA.

The financing of the war was the main problem which made the public opinion change. 15% of the respondents were for blocking the financing of the war by Congress. 62% thought that the Congress should allow the war, but “on the condition that the United States sets benchmarks for progress and the Iraqi government meets those goals” (Sussman 2007).

Thus, it may be concluded that the change in public opinion was influenced by a number of different reasons. The change of the situation in Iraq influenced the inner situation in the USA. Public preference changed but this change was slight. It can be seen that about a half of respondents were either for or against the war in Iraq. Human opinion was formed under the influence of the situation in the whole world.

People acted according to the thermostatic model when people got to know about the situation in Iraq and their opinion changed. Depending on the actions taken in the country, the public got to know the latest news and its preferences changed as well.

The importance of public preference while collecting public opinion

The reduction of the war support from 2003 up to 2005 may be easily explained. The fall of support began when people began to understand that the financial stability of the country may be ruined. Financing the war, the federal deficit increased. More than a half of respondents (62%) would better finance the Gulf Coast rebuilding rather than the war which outcome seemed rather unpredictable.

Americans did not believe that it was possible to build stable democracy in that country (Roberts 2005). Thus, people began to criticize the war and the preference to it reduced. Public was dissatisfied with the situation and this led to the reduction of public support of the war.

Public preference to the specific event is important as it influenced public opinion about the situation. The beginning of the Presidential primaries was one of the most influential events which influenced public opinion. It should be mentioned that it reduced the interest to the war in general. Many people began to be less interested in what had happened there.

The Presidential primaries provoked the debates as each candidate wanted to refer his/her election campaign to the situation in Iraq. It is obvious that the debates made many people think about what had happened there, for some people more and more new information revealed.

Many facts about the situation in Iraq were dwelt upon in the daily newspapers According to Soroka (2010), most Americans do not read newspapers, but this does not prevent them from form public preference e and remain responsiveness to the policy. The author is sure that one of the main components of public preference is “whether policy has gone ‘too far’ in one direction or ‘not far enough’” (Soroka 2010, 31).

To give such an opinion is possible even without being aware of the detailed facts about the policy or vents. Thus, public preference is created on the basis of the superficial knowledge. This knowledge makes it possible to formulate public opinion.

Returning to the practical example which has been considered along the whole paper, the preference to the war in Iraq was ether less of more during different periods of time. This influenced public opinion and in different times more or less people supported the war or considered it to be a mistake.

The Economist in 2010 had provided a research with the purpose to consider when public opinion was more preferable to the war in Iraq and when the situation was less positive. When the president Bush declared about the end of the major combat operations in Iraq, the public thought that it was not a mistake (76 %).

When the reports about the tortures by the US military came to the USA, the public opinion changed and the preference to the war reduced, only 66% of Americans still believed that this war was not a mistake. With the bombing of Golden Mosque in Samarra, public opinion about the war began to get stable in the idea that the USA should not have to attack Iraq.

Public preference to the war reduced and 65%believed that the war in Iraq was a great mistake. The Presidential primaries revealed much information and public preference to the war was even less than before, only 40% were sure that the war was not a mistake (‘Big mistake’ 2010).

Thus, referencing to Soroka and the thermostatic model of public preference, it may be concluded that public opinion is really important in the situation. “Without public responsiveness to policy, there is little basis for policy responsiveness to public opinion” (Soroka 2010, 41), but public responsiveness to the policy is an obligatory condition for the existence of the society.

People got used to the fact that they have their opinion about some specific situation. Each American had an opinion about the war in Iraq and the responsiveness to that event created the public opinion and changed public preference either to less or more.

In conclusion, the thermostatic model states that public preference reacts to the changes in the public opinion which is formed on the basis of different policies and events which take place. It should be mentioned that the information flow is really important as many Americans are not interested in detailed study of legal documents and reports about the events.

Being aware of the general facts devoted to the problem people create their opinion which influenced public preference. The attitude to the war in Iraq changed with the occurrence of different events.

When Americans thought that the war was fast and desired goal to make this country democratic were almost reached, the preference to the war increased, but when the war had been lasting for several years and the desired goal was too far, public preference to the war, influenced by the negative public opinion reduced as well.

The poll results presented by different research campaigns showed that the change of the public preference was influenced by different events, both inside the country and outside.

It was obvious that public got to know about different events later and their opinion changed greatly with the change of those events. The nature of the events caused either public satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq and made public preference become either less or more.

‘ABC News/Washington Post.” 2009. Opinion Polls/Surveys . Web.

Benedetto, Richard. 2003. “Most say Iraq war was worth fighting.” USA Today . Web.

“ Big mistake. ” 2010. The Economist . Web.

“ Iraq. ” 2011. CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll . Web.

“NBC News/Wall Street Journal.” 2009. Opinion Polls/Surveys . Web.

“ Public Attitudes Toward the War in Iraq: 2003-2008. ” 2008. PewResearchCenter Publications . Web.

Roberts, Joel. 2005. “ Poll: Fading support for Iraq war. ” CBSNEWS . Web.

Soroka, Stuart Neil and Christopher Wlezien. 2010. Degrees of democracy: politics, public opinion, and policy . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sussman, Dalia. 2007. “Poll shows view of Iraq war is most negative since start.” The New York Times . Web.

“USATODAY/CNN/Gallup poll results.” 2005. USA Today . Web.

“Do you favor or oppose the U.S. war in Iraq?” (CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll in ‘Iraq’ 2011)

(New York Times/CBS News poll in Sussman 2007)

Did the USA do the right thing in taking military action against Iraq?

How are things going for the U.S. in its efforts to bring stability and order to Iraq?

USATODAY/CNN/Gallup poll results 2005

All in all, do you think the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, or not?

How would you say things are going for the U.S. in Iraq now that the major fighting has ended – very well, moderately well, moderately badly, (or) very badly?

NBC News/Wall Street Journal (Mar. 2-5, 2007)

“In general, do you approve or disapprove of the job that George W. Bush is doing in handling the situation in Iraq?”

“Do you favor or oppose the decision to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq?”

ABC News/Washington Post 2009

“All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not?”

(‘Big mistake’ 2010)

CBS in Roberts 2005

Did U.S. do the right thing going to war with Iraq?

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Guest Essay

Do Not Make Survival Even More Difficult for People on the Streets

By Laura Riley

Ms. Riley is the director of the clinical program at the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Homeless Advocacy.”

In 2013, Grants Pass, Ore., came up with a strategy to deal with a growing homeless population in the city of roughly 40,000, one that might best be described as kicking the can down the road.

Through a series of ordinances, the city essentially made it illegal to sleep outside in public. In particular, anyone sleeping anywhere in public with bedding, a blanket or a sleeping bag would be breaking the law.

“The point,” the City Council president explained at the time, “is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road.”

Unhoused individuals wouldn’t have much choice. There are no homeless shelters in Grants Pass. At least 600 people in the city were unhoused in 2018 and 2019, according to counts by a local nonprofit that serves the unhoused.

Now the United States Supreme Court is being asked whether the enforcement of the city’s camping regulations, which apply to all of the city’s residents but affect them in vastly different ways, violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday.

Of course, weighing the legality of camping obscures the real issue, which is how, in a nation with roughly 650,000 unhoused people, the federal, state and local governments can make sure there are enough beds for people to sleep in. Forcing unhoused people to the next town does not create housing that is affordable or available.

The case is an appeal to a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that prohibited Grants Pass from using citations to enforce its public camping ordinance. The Ninth Circuit had earlier prohibited cities from enforcing criminal restrictions on public camping unless there was access to adequate temporary shelter.

In the decision being challenged by Grants Pass, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the city “cannot, consistent with the Eighth Amendment, enforce its anti-camping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements, or for sleeping in their car at night, when there is no other place in the city for them to go.”

Which there rarely is, in Grants Pass or elsewhere, and which is why people often have no choice but to sleep outside.

In a friend of the court brief, the National Homelessness Law Center argued that Grants Pass had “rejected” its obligation to care for unhoused residents and that vulnerable groups would continue to be marginalized unless the court decides once and for all that those ordinances are cruel. In its brief to the court, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund noted that the laws disproportionately affect people with disabilities and don’t serve any rehabilitative or deterrent interest.

If nothing else, one thing this case has done is unite many officials on the left and the right of the political spectrum, from San Francisco to Arizona. They have complained in briefs to the court that the Ninth Circuit has hamstrung their communities in dealing with homeless encampments.

But homelessness arises from policy decisions, not from a ruling by an appellate court. The Supreme Court should uphold the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. Otherwise it will open the door for communities to pass local laws that effectively punish unhoused people for existing within their borders, making what is clearly cruel permissible.

It would not be unexpected for the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to give the green light for the kind of camping bans at issue. Unhoused people would be pushed further to the margins, increasingly out of sight and mind. They will still be out there, parked in cars in rural areas or subsisting on urban streets, perhaps after being fined or jailed for the crime of trying to survive without a roof over their heads.

This case shines a light on the abdication of responsibility by governments at all levels to their unhoused residents. Instead of arguing about the legality of bans on sleeping in public, we should be asking: Why move people down the road to another community, one that is likely also short on shelter beds?

There is no doubt that the path to creating permanent housing (and more temporary shelter) is politically challenging and expensive. But there are many solutions along this path that go beyond what lawyers and the courts, even our highest one, can accomplish, and that the public should be demanding.

Governments at all levels should invest in homelessness prevention programs and strategies. Those include providing housing subsidies to people who otherwise could lose their housing and supportive transitional services for those leaving mental health treatment and correctional centers.

People on the brink of homelessness should have a right to counsel in eviction proceedings and should be offered the possibility of mediation in housing courts to give them a chance to remain in their houses or apartments.

Businesses should be increasing employment opportunities by not requiring a permanent address in job applications. Lawmakers should create more pathways for people to clear their criminal records, some that arise from targeted enforcement of low-level, nonviolent offenses, because those records can make it much more difficult to get a job.

For populations with unique needs, such as young people and veterans, social service agencies should pursue particularized interventions that address the underlying reasons that pushed individuals into homelessness.

And, of course, we should be building more housing, plain and simple, and we should be providing affordable housing incentives in areas with grocery stores and medical care nearby.

The Supreme Court should not further criminalize homelessness. But whether it does or not, this case should put governments at all levels on notice that humane policies can help to reduce homelessness. We don’t have to let this crisis continue.

Laura Riley is the director of the clinical program at the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Homeless Advocacy.”

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Turmoil at NPR after editor rips network for political bias

The public radio network is being targeted by conservative activists over the editor’s essay, which many staffers say is misleading and inaccurate.

Uri Berliner had worked at NPR for a quarter-century when he wrote the essay that would abruptly end his tenure. On April 9, the Free Press published 3,500 words from Berliner, a senior business editor, about how the public radio network is guilty of journalistic malpractice — for conforming to a politically liberal worldview at the expense of fairness and accuracy.

“It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed,” Berliner wrote. “We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding. In recent years, however, that has changed.”

The essay, whose arguments were disputed by NPR management and many staffers, plunged the network into a week-long public controversy.

Last week NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, indirectly referenced Berliner’s essay in a note to staff that NPR also published online. “Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions,” she wrote. “Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”

The drama reached a pinnacle Wednesday, when Berliner resigned while taking a shot at Maher.

In his resignation letter, Berliner called NPR “a great American institution” that should not be defunded. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote in the letter, posted on his X account. “But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems I cite in my Free Press essay.”

Berliner’s comments have angered many of his now-former colleagues, who dismissed as inaccurate his depiction of their workplace and who say his faulty criticisms have been weaponized against them.

Berliner’s essay is titled “ I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust .” On its face, it seemed to confirm the worst suspicions held by NPR’s critics on the right: that the legendary media organization had an ideological, progressive agenda that dictates its journalism. The Free Press is an online publication started by journalist Bari Weiss, whose own resignation from the New York Times in 2020 was used by conservative politicians as evidence that the Times stifled certain ideas and ideologies; Weiss accused the Times of catering to a rigid, politically left-leaning worldview and of refusing to defend her against online “bullies” when she expressed views to the contrary. Berliner’s essay was accompanied by several glossy portraits and a nearly hour-long podcast interview with Weiss. He also went on NewsNation, where the host Chris Cuomo — who had been cast out from CNN for crossing ethical lines to help his governor-brother — called Berliner a “whistleblower.”

Initially, Berliner was suspended for not getting approval for doing work for another publication. NPR policy requires receiving written permission from supervisors “for all outside freelance and journalistic work,” according to the employee handbook.

An NPR spokeswoman said Wednesday that the network does not comment on personnel matters. Berliner declined The Washington Post’s request for further comment.

In an interview Tuesday with NPR’s David Folkenflik — whose work is also criticized in the Free Press essay — Berliner said “we have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they’re capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners.”

Berliner’s future at NPR became an open question. NPR leaders were pressed by staff in meetings this week as to why he was still employed there. And some reporters made clear they didn’t want to be edited by Berliner anymore because they now questioned his journalistic judgment, said one prominent NPR journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve relationships. “How are you supposed to have honest debates about coverage if you think it’s going to be fodder for the point he’s trying to make?” the staffer said.

Berliner had written that “there’s an unspoken consensus” about stories to pursue at NPR — “of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies” — and that the network operated without friction, “almost like an assembly line.”

Several prominent NPR journalists countered that impression. “We have strong, heated editorial debates every day to try and get the most appropriate language and nuanced reporting in a landscape that is divisive and difficult to work in as a journalist,” Leila Fadel, host of “Morning Edition,” told The Post. “Media and free independent press are often under attack for the fact-based reporting that we do.” She called Berliner’s essay “a bad-faith effort” and a “factually inaccurate take on our work that was filled with omissions to back his arguments.”

Other staffers noted that Berliner did not seek comment from NPR for his piece. No news organization is above reproach, “Weekend Edition” host Ayesha Rascoe told The Post, but someone should not “be able to tear down an entire organization’s work without any sort of response or context provided, or pushback.” There are many legitimate critiques to make of NPR’s coverage, she added, “but the way this has been done — it’s to invalidate all the work NPR does.”

NPR is known to have a very collegial culture, and the manner in which Berliner aired his criticism — perhaps even more than the substance of it — is what upset so many of his co-workers, according to one staffer.

“Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep, writing on his Substack on Tuesday , fact-checked or contextualized several of the arguments Berliner made. For instance: Berliner wrote that he once asked “why we keep using that word that many Hispanics hate — Latinx.” Inskeep said he searched 90 days of NPR’s content and found “Latinx” was used nine times — “usually by a guest” — compared to the nearly 400 times “Latina” and “Latino” were used.

“This article needed a better editor,” Inskeep wrote. “I don’t know who, if anyone, edited Uri’s story, but they let him publish an article that discredited itself. … A careful read of the article shows many sweeping statements for which the writer is unable to offer evidence.”

This week conservative activist Christopher Rufo — who rose to fame for targeting “critical race theory,” and whose scrutiny of Harvard President Claudine Gay preceded her resignation — set his sights on Maher, surfacing old social media posts she wrote before she joined the news organization. In one 2020 tweet, she referred to Trump as a “deranged racist.” Others posts show her wearing a Biden hat, or wistfully daydreaming about hanging out with Kamala D. Harris. Rufo has called for Maher’s resignation.

“In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen,” Maher wrote in a statement to The Post, when asked about the social media posts. “What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public.”

Maher, who started her job as NPR CEO last month, previously was the head of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. An NPR spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday that Maher “was not working in journalism at the time” of the social media posts; she was “exercising her first amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen,” and “the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions.”

In a statement, an NPR spokesperson described the outcry over Maher’s old posts as “a bad faith attack that follows an established playbook, as online actors with explicit agendas work to discredit independent news organizations.”

Meanwhile, some NPR staffers want a more forceful defense of NPR journalism by management. An internal letter — signed by about 50 NPR staffers as of Wednesday afternoon — called on Maher and NPR editor in chief Edith Chapin to “publicly and directly” call out Berliner’s “factual inaccuracies and elisions.”

In the essay, Berliner accuses NPR of mishandling three major stories: the allegations of the 2016 Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia, the origins of the coronavirus , and the authenticity and relevance of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Berliner’s critics note that he didn’t oversee coverage of these stories. They also say that his essay indirectly maligns employee affinity groups — he name-checks groups for Muslim, Jewish, queer and Black employees, which he wrote “reflect broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic at birth.” (Berliner belonged to the group for Jewish employees, according to an NPR staffer with knowledge of membership.) He also writes that he found NPR’s D.C. newsroom employed 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans in editorial positions in 2021. His critics say this figure lacks proper context.

Tony Cavin, NPR’s managing editor of standards and practices, told The Post that “I have no idea where he got that number,” that NPR’s newsroom has 660 employees, and that “I know a number of our hosts and staff are registered as independents.” That includes Inskeep, who, on his Substack, backed up Cavin’s assessment.

Berliner also wrote that, during the administration of Donald Trump , NPR “hitched our wagon” to top Trump antagonist Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) by interviewing him 25 times about Trump and Russia. Cavin told The Post NPR aired 900 interviews with lawmakers during the same period of time, “so that’s 3 percent. He’s a business reporter, he knows about statistics and it seems he’s selectively using statistics.”

Cavin said some inside the organization agree with points Berliner made, even if they “don’t like the way he went about it. The irony of this is it tells you how diverse as an organization we are, in ideological terms.”

“There are a few bits of truth in this,” NPR international correspondent Eyder Peralta wrote on Facebook. But he said the essay “uses a selecting reading to serve the author’s own world views” and paints with “too broad a brush.”

“I have covered wars, I have been thrown in jail for my work,” Peralta told The Post, “and for him to question part of what is in our nature, which is intellectual curiosity and that we follow our noses where they lead us, that hurts. And I think that damages NPR.”

Some staffers have also been attacked online since the essay’s publication. Rascoe, who, as a Black woman host for NPR, says she’s no stranger to online vitriol, but one message after Berliner’s essay labeled her as a “DEI hire” who has “never read a book in her life.”

“What stung about this one was it came on the basis of a supposed colleague’s op-ed,” whose words were “being used as fodder to attack me,” Rascoe said. “And my concern is not about me, but all the younger journalists who don’t have the platform I have and who will be attacked and their integrity questioned simply on the basis of who they are.”

NPR, like much of the media industry, has struggled in recent years with a declining audience and a tough ad market. NPR laid off 100 workers in 2023, one of its largest layoffs ever , citing fewer sponsorships and a projected $30 million decline in revenue.

Going forward, some staffers worry about the ramifications of Berliner’s essay and the reactions to it. The open letter to Maher and Chapin said that “sending the message that a public essay is the easiest way to make change is setting a bad precedent, regardless of the ideologies being expressed.”

An earlier version of this article included a reference to Uri Berliner's Free Press essay in which Berliner cited voter registration data for editorial employees of NPR's D.C. newsroom. The article has been updated to clarify that this data was from 2021, not the present day.

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Electrostal History and Art Museum

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Electrostal History and Art Museum - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

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40 facts about elektrostal.

Written by Lanette Mayes

Modified & Updated: 02 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes, offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development.

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy, with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

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