CONSERVATIVE CYNICISM: POLITICAL CULTURE IN AUSTRALIA

Though not without its critics, the concept of political cultureis potentially of much value in aiding the explanation of politicalprocesses and behavior. Unfortunately, however, basic data onpolitical culture remains scarce for many countries, Australiaamong them. Although there is a good deal of impressionisticliterature outlining the contours of the Australian politicalculture, broadly defined, very little systematic evidence hasbeen adduced to test the many assertions made in these writings.This paper injects some empirical substance into the argument.Using the Australian National Social Science Survey 1984–87panel, based on a nationwide sample of 1311 respondents, itpresents evidence on five dimensions of mass political culturein Australia, namely, attitudes towards reliance on government,the responsiveness of government, citizen duty, authoritarianismand federalism. In addition to outlining the basic distributionsof public opinion on these dimensions, the paper uses multivariateanalysis to investigate both the causes and consequences ofthese attitudes.     

LIFE AND DEATH AS PUBLIC POLICY: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND ABORTION IN AMERICAN POLITICAL OPINION

Recent decisions of the US Supreme Court, in returning to theissues of capital punishment and abortion, have simultaneouslyexpanded the potential for public opinion on these issues tohave an impact on public policy. This article considers thedistribution of the available combinations of attitudes towardissues of the institutionalized taking (or preservation) ofhuman life, both in the general American public and in subgroupswhich combine these opinions in distinctive fashion. These patternsare then compared to attitudes among partisan political activists,suggesting a further set of recurring, élite-mass tensions.Finally, the resulting tensions and cross-pressures are examinedfor their relationship to the presidential vote in 1984 and1980.     

POLITICAL VIEWS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE

The emerging political consciousness of the Russian people isanalyzed against a background of severe constraints in the Sovietera on public opinion formation. Problems in the transitionto democracy and representative government are reflected inheightened interest in politics, volatile levels of confidencein key political institutions, and deep uncertainty about thefuture in both economic and political terms.     

A CHANGING POLITICAL AGENDA? THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICAL ATTITUDES IN BRITAIN, 1974-87

The 1970s and 1980s have been a period of flux in Western partysystems, with two apparent indicators being the success of rightwingparties and the growth of New Politics issues within electorates.Two theories have been utilized to explain these changes. Thefirst is that they are caused by shifts in popular opinion,which are reflected in elite behavior, while the second arguesthat they are the result of political elites acting indepndentlyof mass opinion. In this paper, we test these two theories usingBritain between 1974 and 1987 as a case study. Using comparablequestions from four national surveys, we find that mass politicalattitudes have changed very little over the period, althoughthere is more change evident on economic than on noneconomicissues. No support is forthcoming for the propositions thatthe British electorate is becoming more conservative or thatNew Politics issues are becoming more important. Overall, itappears that the British party political elite has moved furtherapart than has the electorate. In short, political change inBritain in the 1970s and 1980s is more elite-influenced thanmass-influenced.     

OPINION LEADERSHIP AND POLITICAL EXTREMISM

An analysis of a survey material with 14,000 respondents fromNorway 1984–5 shows a U-shaped relationship between positionon a political left–right scale and activity to influenceothers through personal communication, with the exception ofa sharp drop at the extreme left. Various hypotheses attemptingto explain this pattern of a left dip are tested and refuted:1) it does not seem to be the result of sampling or measurementerror, 2) it is only to a limited extent explained by the socialcomposition of the extreme left, 3) it is not due to the partycomposition of the extreme left, but exists within all partiesof the left, 4) it is not a symptom of a general withdrawalfrom political activity, the extreme left does not lag behindin membership in parties or local elected councils, 5) it isnot part of a general withdrawal from personal communication,there is no left dip in the proportion of opinion leaders invarious non-political areas. Trend data show a changing patternfor the relationship between opinion leadership and politicalextremism from 1973 to 1989, which corresponds to changes inelectoral support for parties of the left and right in Norway.     

MASS MEDIA AND POLITICAL OUTSPOKENNESS IN HONG KONG: LINKING THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT AND THE SPIRAL OF SILENCE

This study analyzes the impact of perceptions of the opinionsof others on political outspokenness in Hong Kong. Two relatedtheories, the third-person effect and the spiral of silence,are tested in the context of public opinion regarding the Sino-Britishdispute over Hong Kong's political future. To estimate the potentialinfluence of perceived public opinion on political outspokennessduring this political crisis, a representative telephone surveyof 660 respondents in Hong Kong was conducted in November 1993. As hypothesized by the third-person effect, perceptions of theinfluence of media reports about the Sino-British dispute onothers were found to be consistently greater than perceptionsof influence on self. Similar to previous findings, respondentswith a higher level of education were more likely to believethat the mass media influence others more than themselves. Thestudy also found empirical support for the spiral of silencehypothesis. Politically unconcerned respondents were less willingto voice their political opinions publicly when they perceivedthe majority opinion not to be on their side. Findings alsoindicate that the third-person effect indirectly influencesthe spiral of silence process through its impact on perceptionsof public opinion.     

VOTERS AND CITIZENS IN A NEW DEMOCRACY: SOME TREND DATA ON POLITICAL ATTITUDES IN SPAIN

General Franco's death in 1975 saw the end of a long dictatorshipand the beginning of political changes of extraordinary importance.This article examines the most outstanding political attitudesof the Spanish people during the processes of transition anddemocratic consolidation. Using survey data from different sources,the authors try to trace the patterns of continuity and changewhich arise from the political indicators selected. The findingsreveal moderate, reformist and supportive attitudes towardsdemocratic principles. These attitudes are compatible with perceptionsof political mistrust and inefficacy, and with limited politicalparticipation.     

PERCEIVING PUBLIC OPINION OF POLITICAL FIGURES: EXAMINING THE LINK BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE OPINION

While previous research has demonstrated that representationsof opinion distributions can impact individual-level judgements,the perceptual processes that yield estimates of that opinionare not yet fully explored. This study focuses exclusively onthe association between personal opinion and perceived publicopinion, examining its magnitude across several political figuresand within multivariate models of opinion perception. Moreover,the association between affective intensity toward a politicalfigure and perceived discrepancy with public opinion is alsoinvestigated. Overall, findings highlight a strong relationshipbetween personal and perceived public sentiment. While occasionallysignificant, the effects of group attachments are relativelymodest. Additionally, findings suggest that as affective orientationtoward political figures advances from neutrality to highlyfavorable or unfavorable, perceived discrepancies with publicsentiment rise considerably. Implications and future researchconsiderations are discussed in some detail.     

The Indirect Effects of Partisanship and Partisan Media on Knowledge About Same-Sex Marriage Policy: Exploring the Knowledge and Belief Gap Hypotheses

This study applies the knowledge gap and the belief gap hypotheses to explore knowledge about same-sex marriage rights in the United States. Whereas the knowledge gap predicts that individuals of higher socioeconomic status will be better informed on political issues, the belief gap suggests that that political ideology is a stronger predictor of knowledge and beliefs than education or income levels. Results from this study indicated that higher income levels were a significant predictor of more knowledge about same-sex marriage policy but education was not related to knowledge. As for the belief gap, political party affiliation was not a stronger predictor of knowledge than education level. However, political party affiliation and partisan media (both conservative and liberal) indirectly impacted knowledge through attitudes toward homosexuality, such that Democratic partisanship and liberal media use indirectly led to more knowledge about same-sex marriage rights and conservative media indirectly led to less knowledge about same-sex marriage rights.     

“Pick and choose” opinion climate: How browsing of political messages shapes public opinion perceptions and attitudes

ABSTRACT

High-choice media environments allow people to cocoon themselves with like-minded messages (confirmation bias), which could shape both individual attitudes and perceived prevalence of opinions. This study builds on motivated cognition and spiral of silence theory to disentangle how browsing political messages (both selective exposure as viewing full articles and incidental exposure as encountering leads only) shapes perceived public opinion and subsequently attitudes. Participants (N?=?115) browsed online articles on controversial topics; related attitudes and public opinion perceptions were captured before and after. Multi-level modeling demonstrated a confirmation bias. Both selective and incidental exposure affected attitudes per message stance, with stronger impacts for selective exposure. Opinion climate perceptions mediated selective exposure impacts on attitudes.     

“Arab Spring is Wake-Up Call for Kim Jong-Il”

This study explores how differently and similarly the liberal and conservative newspapers in South Korea framed the Arab Spring in their opinion sections. By employing a qualitative framing analysis of editorials and columns, it found that the ideological views of the news outlets themselves had a considerable influence on the opinion discourses. Compared to the liberal papers, the conservative papers more persistently linked the Arab Spring to South Korea's confrontation with North Korea and portrayed the North Korean regime as the world's most infamous and brutal suppressor of human rights. While the conservative papers rarely saw the Arab Spring as the result of West-led neo-liberal globalization, the liberal papers characterized the Arab Spring as being part of the resistance to “neo-liberalism.” This ideological divergence media made possible the presentation of a variety of views about a public issue within a South Korean context. However, it is a matter of grave concern that news outlets' ideological orientations can also impede the objective presentation of an international issue or event, such as the Arab Spring.     

Segmenting the Electorate: The Effects of Exposure to Political Extremism Online

The Internet provides people with an opportunity to preselect the ideological perspective of the political content they encounter, allowing them to fragment themselves into narrow interest groups and ultimately polarize along ideological lines. This study seeks to test the extremism portion of the fragmentation thesis: that if individuals sort into cocoons of homogeneous perspectives their attitudes will polarize and greater political extremism will result. A random sample of students was exposed to one of four experimental conditions: ideologically homogeneous and highly conservative media, ideologically homogenous and highly liberal content, moderate content, and a condition that included media from each of the three prior conditions. The results demonstrated that exposure to ideological homogeneity did drive attitude extremism in the conservative condition but not in the liberal condition. The moderate condition reduced extremism and the mixed condition demonstrated no significant attitude change. This article concludes that, given media fragmentation, greater extremism is possible. However, this result was only evident in the conservative condition.     

News With an Attitude: Assessing the Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Opinionated News

Opinionated news targets communities of likeminded viewers, relies on dramaturgical storytelling techniques, and shares characteristics with political satire. Accordingly, opinionated news should be understood as a specific form of political entertainment. We have investigated the mechanisms underlying the effects of opinionated news on political attitudes using an experimental design that employed manipulated television news items. Findings confirm that opinionated news positively affects policy attitudes via its presumed influence on others and subsequent perceptions of the opinion climate. However, opinionated news also negatively affects attitudes via hostile media perceptions and evoked anger, especially for people with incongruent political preferences. Due to these opposing processes, we found no total effect of opinionated news on policy attitudes. Conditions are discussed under which either the positive or the negative indirect effect is likely to dominate.     

The Tentacles of a Mighty Octopus

Republican Congressman Louis McFadden and Jehovah's Witness leader Joseph Rutherford promoted a 1934 legislative proposal to open American broadcasting indiscriminately to all who could pay, thus effectively making it a public utility. Debate on the proposed bill illuminates some of the tensions in the construction of network broadcasting's liberal public sphere—not only the intolerance of intolerance at its heart but also the tension between the open pluralism of modern liberalism and the strident defense of truth by fundamentalist religious and populist political crusaders who sought to broadcast their views. Conservative populists astutely identified the intrinsically liberal framework of corporate network broadcasting, specifically its need to present an appearance of fostering diversity under a regime of tolerance.     

Political homophily on social network sites and users' poll skepticism

Although many studies have investigated citizens' attitudes toward polls and the political consequences, there have been no studies examining the effects of social network site (SNS) users' opinion environments on their poll skepticism. Based on prior studies on poll skepticism, we examine the relationship between perceived SNS opinion environments, poll skepticism, perceived concerns over the negative influence of the polls, and voting intention in an upcoming election. Using the survey data of the 2012 South Korean General Election, this study found that if the published polls are against respondents' political position, their homophilous SNS opinion environments promote poll skepticism, and augmented poll skepticism leads to concerns over the negative influence of the polls on other voters, which in turn increases voting intention.     

The Left and the Right

Librarians have been accused by both the political left and right of failing to acquire materials representing controversial views on social and political issues. Two bibliographies of monographs supporting conservative and liberal opinions are used to survey Ohio OCLC member libraries, searching for bias towards either side of the political spectrum. Conservative books appear more often in Ohio academic, public, and special libraries than do liberal titles. However, as books from either bibliography are in no more than 15% of all Ohio libraries, it appears the state's libraries have done a poor job in collecting controversial political materials. Further studies are needed to determine the extent, if any, of political bias among American libraries on collection development.     

Beyond Vox Pop: The Role of News Sourcing and Political Beliefs in Exemplification Effects

The people we see in news media can affect our perceptions of public opinion through exemplification. Although research shows that individuals interviewed in a news story can influence perceptions of public opinion, little attention has been paid to the role that source type and audience attitudes play in the exemplification process. This study tests how the exemplification process is influenced by different types of news sources featured in an article (e.g., vox pop, protester, and interest group interviews) and the audience's own political ideology. The study finds that the perceived typicality of sources is affected by both source type and how much an audience member agrees with the source. Source type is also found to directly affect perceptions of public opinion.     

OPINION RESEARCH, LIBERALISM AND THE FRENCH RIGHT

During the rewriting of its program in the early 1980s, theRassemblement pour la République (RPR) carried out anumber of opinion surveys. The person in charge of this wasnot a member of the inner leadership circle; he warned the partyleader, Jacques Chirac, that themes forming a coherent ‘liberal’program for the transformation of the relationship between citizens,state, and the economy, were not popular with public opinion,which remained attached to progressive taxation and a comprehensivesocial welfare system. The party leadership ignored these warnings.Rather than attempting to align their policies with voter aspirations,their principal use of political communications techniques aimedat improving their leader's image. The person in charge of thiswork was a stranger to politics whose understanding of the waycultural or political attitudes are changed led him to interpretvery fatalistically the chances of influencing election outcomesby communications techniques. His methods were treated withfrank skepticism by party communications colleagues, his client'spersonality was particularly unamenable to his efforts, andhis one successful initiative—the rejuvenation of theexecutive committee—was operated at the cost of a rowin the party. In the case of the RPR, opinion research seemsto have played no role at all in an important party policy review,the causes of which should be sought elsewhere.     

EARLY POLITICAL PARTIES AS MEDIATED COMMUNITIES

It has been well documented that forms of media help create new communities, such as the public sphere and the nation. However, the origin of one major political institution has rarely been considered in this light: the political party. This paper brings together the theory on early party formation in North America and the theory on mediated communities to argue that the first public political organizations in Canada, which resembled modern parties in many ways, should be seen as constituted by the media. The paper presents the case of Upper Canada (1820–1841) where newspaper distribution linked partisans into new communities, and editors and politicians ‘imagined’ new political communities in the pages of their newspapers. Modern political parties should thus be seen as essentially mediated communities.     

Something Old,Something New,Something Borrowed From Something Blue: Experiments on Dual Viewing TV and Twitter

The use of second screens to dual-view television and social media is exponentially increasing. As a result, television producers are increasingly augmenting television content with social media comments from viewers, which may serve as a type of real-time public opinion indicator. The current research effort utilizes two experimental studies to explore the effects of this new media production practice on viewer's attitudes and opinions. In these studies, a Twitter feed was integrated in to entertainment (Study 1) and political (Study 2) television broadcasts and manipulated to convey either positive or negative opinions of the content. Participants' opinions were found to conform to the majority opinion presented in the manipulated Twitter feed in nearly all of the analyses. Implications for dual viewing and second screen use are discussed in light of findings.