THE IMAGE OF PUBLIC OPINION SURVEYS IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE

This paper examines the results of studies in Britain and Franceon the views of the two peoples towards public opinion surveys: — their experience of surveys — attitudes towards the concept of sample surveys — the accuracy of sample surveys — the publication of polls during election campaigns — exposure to news information — interest in survey data The results in the two countries were, to a substantial degree,similar and showed an underlying positive attitude towards publicopinion surveys. There are, however, a number of points to bearin mind, where more public relations and more public informationis required to improve public awareness of, and public acceptanceof, opinion surveys.     

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.     

THE RISE OF POSTMATERIALIST VALUES AND CHANGING RELIGIOUS ORIENTATIONS, GENDER ROLES AND SEXUAL NORMS

This article investigates the relationship between Materialistand Postmaterialist values, and attitudes towards religiousand social norms as well as behavioral indicators in industrialsocieties. It focusses on the question whether Postmaterialistvalues—indicated through a greater emphasis on such goalsas self-expression, quality of life and belonging—arerelated to a decline of traditional orientations. The empiricalpart is based on the data of a unique cross-national dataset,the World Values Survey 1981–1982, which compares religiousand moral beliefs of populations of sixteen countries with variouspolitical, cultural and ethnic characteristics. It also takesinto account behavioral indicators related to these norms, e.g.birth and divorce rates in these countries. According to theresults, Post-materialist values are closely related to a declineof traditional values. There also exist strong linkages betweenindividual-level values and the actual behavior of the peoplesin the given societies. But besides their detachment from traditionalreligion, Postmaterialists are significantly more likely thanMaterialists to spend time thinking about the meaning of lifeand, thus, may even have more potential interest in religion.     

KILLER AND VICTIM ISSUES: ISSUE COMPETITION IN THE AGENDA-SETTING PROCESS OF GERMAN TELEVISION

The capacity of the mass media to cover issues as well as thecapacity of recipients to be concerned about issues is limited.The coverage on and the concern about new issues will consequentlyremove old issues from the agenda of both the mass media andthe general public. The present study investigates two modelsof this process of issue competition. The equal-displacementmodel assumes that a rise of one issue in the media by a givennumber of stories is matched by an equal fall in all other issuessumming up to a similar number of issues. The restructuringmodel assumes that unexpected, surprising or otherwise newsworthyevents create killer issues that move several other issues completelyoff the agenda and leave others untouched. A content analysisof all news shows of the two major TV stations in Germany and53 weekly surveys regarding 16 different issues covering thewhole year 1986 shows that—within the media agenda—therewere no killer issues affecting the coverage of the TV stations.In the public agenda, however, some killer issues could be identified.Coverage of these issues increased public concern about themand decreased concerns about other issues. Consequences of theseresults for agenda-setting theory and for politics are discussed.     

MEASURING THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT OF NEWS: THE IMPACT OF QUESTION ORDER, CONTRAST AND KNOWLEDGE

This study investigated the extent to which the third-personeffect—the tendency of people to estimate greater impactof media messages on ‘other people’ than on themselves—mightdepend upon question-contrast effects (i.e. self-serving comparisonstriggered by back-to-back questions dealing with effect on othersand oneself), the order of questions, and respondents' levelsof background political knowledge. Two hundred and eighty-sevensubjects participated in two experimental studies involvingquestions about media coverage of President Clinton's possiblerole in the ‘Whitewater Affair’, his alleged frequentpolicy reversals, the O. J. Simpson murder trial, and childmolestation charges against Michael Jackson. Both experimentsresulted in significant third-person effects that did not dependupon having the same respondents answer both questions; meansfor single-question (no contrast) conditions did not differsignificantly from comparable means in two-question (contrast)conditions. No significant main effects of question order wereobserved. In Experiment 1 a significant interaction betweenpolitical knowledge and question order was found, such thata negative relationship between knowledge and perceived impacton oneself emerged when the ‘self’ question followeda question about perceived effects on others. Experiment 2 replicatedthe interaction for two of three news stimuli, and indicatedthat it was not a product of differences in the personal importanceof issues. Implications of these results for understanding thethird-person effect are discussed.     

THE STRUCTURATION OF EUROPE

Europe is characterized by a unique path of social differentiation.The ‘two swords’—state and church—thatstructured western European society in the Middle Ages havesince multiplied into six. Six cardinal institutions of society—theeconomy, government, science, religion, ethics, and art—eachmaintain a large measure of independence. Each is dependenton a special type of freedom: civic liberties, free trade, academicfreedom, religious toleration, the right to follow one’sconscience, artistic licence. The modern Europeans are offeredthe opportunity to create self-chosen biographies in their questfor wealth, order, truth, salvation, virtue, and beauty. Thesuccess of the EC depends on finding a form that suits thismainstream of European structuration. The appropriate form seemscloser to the model of ancient Athens that that of the RomanEmpire. Public opinion plays a vital role in integrating thistype of social order.     

PUBLIC APPROVAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND OTHER NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENT GOALS IN WESTERN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

The environmental movement is one of the most successful socialmovements of the twentieth century, and a key reason for itssuccess has been strong public approval of the movement's goalof environmental protection. This paper reports cross-nationaldata on public approval of environmental protection relativeto approval of the goals of other major ‘new social movements’—theanti-nuclear power movement, the nuclear disarmament movement,the women's movement, the human rights movement and the animalrights movement—in Western Europe and the United States.The data come from a 1990 ‘lifestyles and attitudes’survey conducted by Gallup for Reader's Digest, based on nationallyrepresentative samples in the United States and seventeen Europeannations, and show higher public approval for environmental protectionthan for the goals of other new social movements.     

A COMPARISON OF FACTORS INFLUENCING ISSUE DIVERSITY IN THE U.S. AND TAIWAN

The study extends agenda-setting research by examining issuediversity as a consequence of media exposure. Results from twosurveys—one conducted in the United States, the otherin Taiwan—illustrate differences in the cultures of thetwo samples. In general, older individuals who find low utilityin advertising information but who read a variety of newspapersand feel a strong civic duty to keep informed believe thereare many important issues facing the United States. Younger,highly educated individuals who have a high interest in politicalnews and who read a variety of newspapers believe there aremany important issues facing Taiwan.     

THE DIMENSIONS OF EXPRESSION INHIBITION: PERCEPTIONS OF OBSTACLES TO FREE SPEECH IN THREE CULTURES

As part of a comparative study of attitudes toward freedom ofexpression, Americans, Israeli Jews, and Israeli Arabs wereasked about the social contexts in which they feel unfree tospeak and about the reasons that inhibit them. Home was theleast inhibiting locus in all three cultures and, for the U.S.respondents, the workplace was most inhibiting. Responding toa battery of 33 reasons for not speaking out, all three culturesgave highest ratings to items related to the fear of hurtingothers. Questions measuring fear of being disapproved or hurtby others—including fear of isolation from the majorityand fear of legal restraint—were ranked lower. An overallindex of inhibition items proved highly reliable cross-culturally.Americans claimed least inhibition and Israeli Arabs most. Malesand those with higher education levels and incomes were alsoless inhibited across the three cultures. Expression inhibitionwas negatively, through weakly, related to support for expressiverights among both Israeli groups and American whites but notAmerican blacks, where the relation was positive. Expressioninhibition was negatively related to political activity amongAmericans and Israeli Jews but not among Arabs.     

THE GULF CRISIS: A BRITISH PERSPECTIVE

This paper presents the results of a relatively large numberof public opinion surveys conducted in Britain during the Gulfcrisis—August 1990 to February 1991—many at weeklyintervals. The questions detailed here not only dealt with publicattitudes to the crisis itself but on its impact on the perceptionof the superpowers and the Arab world; again comparative trends,stretching back for almost forty years. There is also a discussionof the Gulf crisis and the British domestic political situation—wouldthe so-called ‘Falklands effect’ of 1982-1983 bereplicated by a ‘Gulf effect’ in 1991? This collectionof surveys probably represents one of the largest databaseson the topic in Britain. The paper shows a fairly stable positionof public opinion during the crisis; an improvement in the imageof the United States but a deterioration in that of the SovietUnion; but no significant effect on the British domestic politicalscene.     

Collective Efficacy, Support for Democratization, and Political Participation in Hong Kong

Public opinion studies have conventionally treated politicalefficacy as a two-dimensional concept involving internal andexternal efficacy. The former refers to people’s beliefsabout their individual abilities to understand politics, andthe latter refers to people’s beliefs about governmentresponsiveness. The present study reexamines and goes beyondthis two-dimensional view. It proposes that collective efficacy,defined as a citizen’s belief in the capabilities of thepublic as a collective actor to achieve social and politicaloutcomes, can be considered as a third dimension of politicalefficacy. Based on this three-dimensional view, the relationshipbetween political efficacy, support for democratization, andpolitical participation in Hong Kong is examined. Analysis ofa representative survey (N = 800) shows that both support fordemocratization and political participation are positively relatedto collective efficacy and negatively related to external efficacy.Internal efficacy, on the other hand, has only a limited relationshipwith the dependent variables, though high levels of internalefficacy are found to be a condition for collective and externalefficacy to exert stronger impact on political attitudes andbehavior. It is argued that two characteristics of the HongKong society—as a transitional society and a collectivistculture—contribute to the significance of collective efficacyin the public opinion process. But the relevance of collectiveefficacy to other contexts is also discussed.     

Reliability and Validity of Real-Time Response Measurement: a Comparison of Two Studies of a Televised Debate in Germany

This paper investigates the reliability and validity of real-timeresponse measurements (RTR). It is based on a comparison oftwo quasi-experimental studies independently conducted on thesecond televised debate of the two major candidates for chancellorin the 2002 German federal election campaign. Participants inBamberg and Mainz—two mid-sized German cities—followedthe debate on a large-scale screen. The viewers’ immediatereactions to the candidates were measured in real-time. In termsof technicalities and substance, both quasi-experiments differedin several important respects. For example, the system usedin Mainz was based on a control unit with a 7-point scale andyielded one merged metric dimension for both candidates. TheBamberg system measured positive and negative impressions ofthe candidates independently, yielding categorical data. Despitethese operational differences, the results show that both methodsrender reliable results that also meet the criteria of face,construct, and criterion validity. Hence, RTR measurements providevaluable, unique insights into subjective immediate reactionsto candidates in televised debates and help to explain post-debateperceptions and attitudes. Received for publication March 23, 2005. Revision received December 14, 2005.     

THE PRESS AND THE POLLS IN GERMANY, 1980-1994 POLL COVERAGE AS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF ELECTION CAMPAIGN REPORTING

Since their beginnings pre-election polls have been under attackfrom politicians and journalists. One of the most fundamentalcriticisms of polls is that they can influence the outcome ofelections. This article investigates news media reporting ofpoll results and comments on public opinion research beforeFederal elections in Germany. It presents empirical findingsfor the quantity as well as the formal and substantial qualityof this press coverage. The database is a content analysis of443 pre-election poll articles published in Germany's leadingdailies Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Frankfurter Rundschau(FR), Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), and Die Welt (Welt) between1980 and 1994. The quantity of news media reporting of publicopinion polls has improved over the years. Now, poll storiesare a standard feature of German newspapers. The frequency ofreports depends on the conditions of each election—e.g.on the expected closeness of the election outcome. The formalquality could be better—that is the conformity to AAPORstandards. Horse-race journalism isn't found as often as inthe USA. Journalists often use poll results to predict an electionoutcome. Moreover, the analysis revealed an ambivalent relationshipbetween liberal journalists and polls, while the reporting ofconservative journalists is more in favor of opinion research.     

CATHOLICISM AND OPPOSITION TO GENDER EQUALITY IN WESTERN EUROPE

A number of scholars have argued that Catholicism is a barrierto gender equality in western Europe. The explanations for thisrelationship have usually focused on historical events and trends,which should result in a contextual effect, and on current churchdoctrine, which should affect individual level attitudes. Inthis paper, we test the importance of the individual and contextualeffects of Catholicism. We find individual Catholics are lesssupportive of gender equality than non-Catholics. Once we controlfor individual religious affiliation, however, we find thatthose in predominantly Catholic countries are more egalitarianthan those in predominantly Protestant ones. We conclude thatthis unusual result is due to the effects of minority religiousstatus—Protestants in predominantly Catholic countriesare more egalitarian than Protestants in Protestant countries,and Catholics in Protestant countries are less egalitarian thanthose in Catholic countries.     

INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS, AND AGENDA MELDING: A THEORY OF SOCIAL DISSONANCE

Many studies have established that there is a degree of audiencelearning from the mass media, especially of new issues enteringthe news. But recent studies show an agenda-setting effect atdeeper levels beyond broad news categories. Audiences also absorbthe attributes of news—the frames and slants in the waynews is presented—and this suggests that while the massmedia do not tell us what to think, the mass media do have considerablepower to tell us how to think about topics, with implicationsfor social policy. Beyond these two levels of agenda setting,however, is something more significant—agenda melding.Agenda melding argues that individuals join groups, in a sense,by joining agendas. There is a powerful impulse to affiliatewith others in groups as one leaves the original family setting,and one joins these groups via media of connections, mostlyother people but also other media. This paper suggests a modelof agenda melding that accounts for the role of media (massor interpersonal) in helping individuals move toward or awayfrom groups. This attempts to build toward general social theoryby suggesting the role of media in how individuals functionwith others in a coherent social system.     

ATTITUDES TOWARDS DEMOCRACY IN ARGENTINA DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD

Transitions to democracy are good settings to observe possiblechanges of beliefs, attitudes and values. This paper analyzesshifts in democratic beliefs during Argentine political transitiontowards democracy. Through the analysis of different surveysin the period 1982–8 diverse patterns concerning two setsof democratic attitudes were observed. Those dealing with participatorydemocracy proved to be not only highly supported but also stablethroughout the period. On the other hand the libertarian orientationsexhibit lower consensus and proved to be much more unstable.They grew at the beginning of the transition but later a regressionto pretransition levels took place, associated with the increaseof socio-economic discontent. Also a relationship between lesslibertarian democratic attitudes and lower socio-economic levelswas observed. The findings call into question the socializationeffects of democratic institutions during relatively short periodsin a context of economic crisis and rising discontent.     

IMPACT OF QUESTION ORDER ON THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT

A nationwide telephone survey in the United States was conductedto investigate the impact of question order on the perceptualand behavioral hypotheses of the third-person effect. The perceptualhypothesis posits that individuals perceive other people tobe more vulnerable than themselves to persuasive media messages,whereas the behavioral hypothesis predicts that perceiving othersas more vulnerable increases support for message restrictions.Key questions included estimated effects of media issues onself, perceived effects on others, and support for restrictionson media content. Four question-order condition (restrictions—others-self,restrictions-self-others, others-self-restrictions, and self—others—restrictions)were tested with three media issues (television violence, televisedtrials, and negative political advertising). In line with pastresearch, the order of the self, others, and restrictions questionsdid not affect the perceptual hypothesis. However, the sequencingof the self, others, and restrictions questions affected supportfor the behavioral hypothesis in some conditions. The resultssuggest that, consistent with a saliency effect, placement ofself and others questions prior to the restrictions questionmight heighten respondents' willingness to endorse restrictionson the media and increase support for the behavioral hypothesis.     

FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS: CENSORSHIP AND THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT

The third person effect hypothesis, which states that individualsexposed to a mass media messaage will expect the communicationto have a greater effect on others than on themselves, may helpto explain the growing trend in support of media censorship.It is suggested here that overestimating the effect of mediaon others may play an important role in the forces underlyinga willingness to restrict various types of communication. Toexamine this relationship, this study focused on the discrepancybetween perceived media effects on others and self, and itsrelation to pro-censorship attitudes within three major topics:the media in general, violence on television, and pornography.The results of this study support the existence of the third-personeffect in mass communication. The findings also indicate thatas the gap between perceived firstand third-person effects increases,individuals are more likely to manifest pro-censorship attitudes.This relationship remained for all three topics even when avariety of potentially confounding demographic, media use, andattitudinal variables were controlled. The data also suggestthat for pornography the effects gap is related to a willingnessto act in favor of censoring.     

THE AGENDA-SETTING EFFECTS OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS COVERAGE: AN EXAMINATION OF DIFFERING NEWS FRAMES

The agenda-setting impact of international news was examinedby comparing the coverage of 15 categories of internationalnews in four news media (the New York Times, ABC, CBS, and NBC)with the level of public concern with international problemsas recorded by all 41 Gallup organization's most important problempolls conducted from 1975 to 1990. The findings suggest thatthe way in which international news is framed in news reportsmay determine the magnitude of salience cues. Four categoriesof news coverage demonstrated the strongest agenda-setting influence:international conflicts involving the United States; terrorisminvolving the U.S.; crime/drugs; and military/nuclear arms.Generally, the results support previous findings which concludedthat stories with high degrees of conflict and stories withconcrete presentations (by including Americans in the stories)have the strongest agenda-setting impact. In addition, two newscategories—international trade not involving the UnitedStates, and politics not involving the United States—correlatednegatively with public concern for two of the news media. Thisresult suggests that press coverage, besides increasing publicconcern with certain issues, can also decrease concern. Certaincategories of news, such as stories dealing with internationalpolitics and trade, can give individuals cues that the internationalarena is functioning quite smoothly. These types of internationalnews stories show individuals that international problems arenot really serious problems at all.     

'REDEFINITION OF IMAGE': THE IMPACT OF MASS-MEDIATED TERRORISM

The emergence of media-oriented terrorism led several scholarsof modern terrorism to reconceptualize the phenomenon of terrorwithin the framework of symbolic communication theory. However,the success of media-minded terrorists has been studied mainlyby measures of amount of coverage given to terrorist acts andnot by examining the impact of this coverage on public opinion.The present study sets out to examine the effects of media coverageof two terrorist events on the public's attitudes and perceptions.By means of an experimental design, the impact of press andtelevision reports of two terrorist incidents was studied. Thefindings highlight the ‘redefinition of image’ causedby exposure to media reports and relate media functions suchas status-conferral and agenda setting to the specific caseof mass-mediated terrorism.