Public opinion
Encyclopedia
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or belief
s held by the adult
population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views.
The principle approaches to the study of public opinion may be divided into 4 categories:
and other political and social forces. For the first time, it became important what people thought, as forms of political contention changed.
Adam Smith
, one of the earliest classical economists, refers to public opinion in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, but it was Jeremy Bentham
, the famous utilitarian Philosopher, who fully developed theories of public opinion. He opined that public opinion had the power to ensure that rulers would rule for the greatest happiness of the greater number. He brought in Utilitarian philosophy in order to define theories of public opinion.
The German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies
, by using the conceptional tools of his theory of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
, argued (1922, "Kritik der öffentlichen Meinung"), that 'public opinion' has the equivalent social functions in societies (Gesellschaften) which religion
has in communities (Gemeinschaften).
German social theorist Jürgen Habermas
contributed the idea of "Public Sphere
" to the discussion of public opinion. The Public Sphere, or bourgeois public, is according to Habermas, where "something approaching public opinion can be formed" (2004, p. 351). Habermas claimed that the Public Sphere featured universal access, rational debate, and disregard for rank. However, he believes that these three features for how public opinion are best formed are no longer in place in western liberal democratic countries. Public opinion, in western democracy, is highly susceptible to elite manipulation.
The American sociologist Herbert Blumer
has proposed an altogether different conception of the "public." According to Blumer, public opinion is discussed as a form of collective behavior
(another specialized term) which is made up of those who are discussing a given public issue at any one time. Given this definition, there are many publics; each of them comes into being when an issue arises and ceases to exist when the issue is resolved. Blumer claims that people participate in public in different capacities and to different degrees. So, public opinion polling cannot measure the public. An educated individual's participation is more important than that of a drunk. The "mass," in which people independently make decisions about, for example, which brand of toothpaste to buy, is a form of collective behavior different from the public.
Public opinion plays an important role in the political sphere. Cutting across all aspects of relationship between government and public opinion are studies of voting behavior. These have registered the distribution of opinions on a wide variety of issues, have explored the impact of special interest groups on election outcomes and have contributed to our knowledge about the effects of government propaganda and policy.
Public opinion can be influenced by public relations
and the political media
. Additionally, mass media
utilizes a wide variety of advertising
techniques to get their message out and change the minds of people.
The tide of public opinion becomes more and more crucial during political elections, most importantly elections determining the national executive. Some think the Overton window
is a method for shifting or describing shifts in public opinion.
It is frequently measured using the method of survey sampling
.
Organizations
Belief
Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.-Belief, knowledge and epistemology:The terms belief and knowledge are used differently in philosophy....
s held by the adult
Adult
An adult is a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductive age....
population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views.
The principle approaches to the study of public opinion may be divided into 4 categories:
- quantitative measurement of opinion distributions;
- investigation of the internal relationships among the individual opinions that make up public opinion on an issue;
- description or analysis of the public role of public opinion;
- study both of the communication media that disseminate the ideas on which opinions are based and of the uses that propagandists and other manipulators make of these media.
Concepts of "public opinion"
Public opinion as a concept gained credence with the rise of "public" in the eighteenth century. The English term "public opinion" dates back to the eighteenth century and has derived from the French l’opinion publique, which was first used in 1588 by Montaigne. This concept came about through the process of urbanizationUrbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....
and other political and social forces. For the first time, it became important what people thought, as forms of political contention changed.
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
, one of the earliest classical economists, refers to public opinion in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, but it was Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...
, the famous utilitarian Philosopher, who fully developed theories of public opinion. He opined that public opinion had the power to ensure that rulers would rule for the greatest happiness of the greater number. He brought in Utilitarian philosophy in order to define theories of public opinion.
The German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies
Ferdinand Tönnies
Ferdinand Tönnies was a German sociologist. He was a major contributor to sociological theory and field studies, best known for his distinction between two types of social groups, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft...
, by using the conceptional tools of his theory of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are sociological categories introduced by the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies for two normal types of human association...
, argued (1922, "Kritik der öffentlichen Meinung"), that 'public opinion' has the equivalent social functions in societies (Gesellschaften) which religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
has in communities (Gemeinschaften).
German social theorist Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
contributed the idea of "Public Sphere
Public sphere
The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...
" to the discussion of public opinion. The Public Sphere, or bourgeois public, is according to Habermas, where "something approaching public opinion can be formed" (2004, p. 351). Habermas claimed that the Public Sphere featured universal access, rational debate, and disregard for rank. However, he believes that these three features for how public opinion are best formed are no longer in place in western liberal democratic countries. Public opinion, in western democracy, is highly susceptible to elite manipulation.
The American sociologist Herbert Blumer
Herbert Blumer
Herbert George Blumer was an American sociologist. Continuing the work of George Herbert Mead, he named and developed the topic of symbolic interactionism. According to Blumer himself, his main post-graduate scholarly interests were symbolic interactionism and methodological problems...
has proposed an altogether different conception of the "public." According to Blumer, public opinion is discussed as a form of collective behavior
Collective behavior
The expression collective behaviour was first used by Robert E. Park, and employed definitively by Herbert Blumer, to refer to social processes and events which do not reflect existing social structure , but which emerge in a "spontaneous" way.Collective behavior might also be defined as action...
(another specialized term) which is made up of those who are discussing a given public issue at any one time. Given this definition, there are many publics; each of them comes into being when an issue arises and ceases to exist when the issue is resolved. Blumer claims that people participate in public in different capacities and to different degrees. So, public opinion polling cannot measure the public. An educated individual's participation is more important than that of a drunk. The "mass," in which people independently make decisions about, for example, which brand of toothpaste to buy, is a form of collective behavior different from the public.
Public opinion plays an important role in the political sphere. Cutting across all aspects of relationship between government and public opinion are studies of voting behavior. These have registered the distribution of opinions on a wide variety of issues, have explored the impact of special interest groups on election outcomes and have contributed to our knowledge about the effects of government propaganda and policy.
Private opinion and public policy
The most pervasive issue dividing theories of the opinion-policy relation bears a striking resemblance to the problem of monism-pluralism in the history of philosophy. The controversy deals with the question of whether the structure of socio-political action should be viewed as a more or less centralized process of acts and decisions by a class of key leaders, representing integrated hierarchies of influence in society or whether it is more accurately envisaged as several sets of relatively autonomous opinion and influence groups, interacting with representative decision makers in an official structure of differentiated governmental authority. The former assumption interprets individual, group and official action as part of a single system and reduces politics and governmental policies to a derivative of three basic analytical terms: society, culture and personality.The use of public opinion studies
The rapid spread of public opinion measurement around the world is reflection of the number of uses to which it can be put. Public opinion can be accurately obtained through a random sample survey, if done correctly. Governments have increasingly found surveys to be useful tools for guiding their public policies. The US Department of Agriculture was one of the first government agencies to sponsor systematic and large scale surveys. It was followed by many other federal bodies, including the US information agency which has conducted opinion research in all parts of the world.Public opinion can be influenced by public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
and the political media
Political media
Political media are communication vehicles owned, ruled, managed, or otherwise influenced by political entities, meant to propagate views of the related entity. A similar term, normative media, emphasizes technical and social characteristics of the media itself in shaping decisions...
. Additionally, mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
utilizes a wide variety of advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
techniques to get their message out and change the minds of people.
The tide of public opinion becomes more and more crucial during political elections, most importantly elections determining the national executive. Some think the Overton window
Overton window
The Overton window, in political theory, describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph P...
is a method for shifting or describing shifts in public opinion.
It is frequently measured using the method of survey sampling
Survey sampling
In statistics, survey sampling describes the process of selecting a sample of elements from a target population in order to conduct a survey.A survey may refer to many different types or techniques of observation, but in the context of survey sampling it most often involves a questionnaire used to...
.
See also
- Opinion polls
- Public spherePublic sphereThe public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...
- Political socializationPolitical socializationPolitical socialization is a concept concerning the “study of the developmental processes by which children and adolescents acquire political cognition, attitudes and behaviors”. It refers to a learning process by which norms and behavior acceptable to a well running political system are...
- Public figurePublic figurePublic figure is a legal term applied in the context of defamation actions as well as invasion of privacy. A public figure cannot base a lawsuit on incorrect harmful statements unless there is proof that the writer or publisher acted with actual malice...
Organizations
- American Association for Public Opinion ResearchAmerican Association for Public Opinion ResearchThe American Association for Public Opinion Research , founded in 1947, is an organization of approximately 1900 survey research professionals from academia, non-profit organizations, polling firms, and government...
- European Society for Opinion and Marketing ResearchEuropean Society for Opinion and Marketing ResearchThe European Society for Opinion and Market Research is a world association for market, social and opinion researchers.Founded in 1948, ESOMAR began as a regional association within Europe...
- World Association for Public Opinion ResearchWorld Association for Public Opinion ResearchThe World Association for Public Opinion Research is an international professional association of researchers in the fields of communication and survey research...
- Gabriel TardeGabriel TardeJean-Gabriel De Tarde or Gabriel Tarde in short French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist who conceived sociology as based on small psychological interactions among individuals , the fundamental forces being imitation and innovation.- Theory :Among the concepts...
- Ferdinand TönniesFerdinand TönniesFerdinand Tönnies was a German sociologist. He was a major contributor to sociological theory and field studies, best known for his distinction between two types of social groups, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft...
- Walter LippmannWalter LippmannWalter Lippmann was an American intellectual, writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War...