AMERICAN OPINION TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION

Using a variety of public opinion sources, this article examinesAmerican attitudes toward the Soviet Union. It establishes thatAmericans are basically wary of the Soviet Union, and that thisattitude is largely based on Americans' reactions to Sovietbehavior. Furthermore, the data suggest that Americans favorfirmness in dealing with the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Americansexpress faith in having dialogue with the Soviets and want theirgovernment to be engaged in negotiations. The limited knowledgeAmericans have of the Soviet Union and their reliance on televisionfor news of that country make American opinion susceptible tochange. Indeed, some American attitudes about the Soviets havechanged coincident with Gorbachev's ascension to power and theSoviet-US rapproachment. These findings reject the notion thatAmerican public opinion is capricious and volatile, having noplace in foreign policy formation. Rather, they suggest thatAmerican attitudes have been reasonable, responding to eventsin what would appear to be a logical manner, and that US foreignpolicy makers would be wise to consider American public opinionin their deliberations.     

INTENSE MINORITIES AND THE PATTERN OF PUBLIC OPINION

Data from seven Swedish Election Studies were analyzed to testthree hypotheses about aggregate public opinion. Various facetsof public opinion, including a balance measure of direction,five measures of intensity, percentage don't know, and percentageneutral, were found to be highly stable across time. In mostinstances, the majority was more intense than the minority.Changes in public opinion could not be predicted from the relativeintensity of the majority and the minority in the election threeyears before.     

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.     

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.     

PUBLIC OPINION AND CONFLICTS: A THEORY AND SYSTEM OF OPINION POLLS

Some years ago, major French firms and institutions joined forcesto develop the AGORAMETRIE system, which analyzes and followsup public opinion about controversial matters in French society.The system is based on annual comprehensive surveys of representativesamples of the French population. We present here the theoreticalbasis of the system, and its application as a decoding toolto the analysis of specific social problems, by consideringthe following points: the modelling of public opinion througha constructivist approach; questionnaire design and interpretationof structural factors; evolution of public opinion, effectsof date, age and generation; and the ‘grafting’procedure and its application, illustrated by opinion aboutAIDS.     

MEDIA TONE AND PUBLIC OPINION: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF MEDIA COVERAGE AND PUBLIC OPINION ON CHANCELLOR KOHL

This study investigates the relationship between media coverageof Helmut Kohl in seven leading German print media and the opinionsof the German general public about the politician between 1975and 1984. For the content analysis evaluative assessments aboutHelmut Kohl on six different dimensions of characteristics werecoded. The analysis of public opinion is based on 72 representativesurveys in which respondents expressed their evaluations ofthe politician. The two time series were compared by means ofcross-lagged correlations. The whole period was first examinedwith aggregations of three-months-intervals; then closer attentionwas paid to the time period since Helmut Kohl took office aschancellor on the basis of monthly intervals. In both cases,the results show that evaluation shifts in the media precedesimilar evaluation shifts in public opinion with a time lagof about three to six months for the whole period of investigation,and a somewhat shorter time lag for the time of his chancellorship.Evaluation shifts in the political magazines Der Spiegel andStern were more closely related to public opinion than evaluationshifts in the national dailies.     

RECENT ARTICLES IN THE FIELD OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH

In this section the International Journal of Public OpinionResearch reviews in a very condensed manner articles which haverecently been published in other journals and which relate tothe field of public opinion research. This section does notaim to give readers a comprehensive insight to particular studies,but rather to alert them to ideas and results that may be linkedto their own work. In order to facilitate orientation to thereader, the reviews are grouped according to the following topics: (1) Politics, Elections and Social Values; (2) Public Opinion on Current Issues; (3) Methodology of Public Opinion Polling; (4) Polls as a Social and Political Factor; (5) Mass Media and Public Opinion.     

REFERENCE GROUPS, OPINION INTENSITY, AND PUBLIC OPINION EXPRESSION

Noelle-Neumann's work on the spiral of silence (1974, 1977,1984) has been one of the most significant theoretical developmentsin public opinion research of the past quarter-century. Thetheory is well known among public opinion researchers, and anumber of research efforts have been directed toward examiningspecific parts of the theory. However, the theory is difficultto test, incorporating psychological, social-psychological andsociological variables, including psychological variables andsweeping changes in the social climate of opinion (cf. Noelle-Neumann1984). This study investigated the role of opinion thresholds, socialgroups and weighing of others' opinions in opinion expression.Using Krassa's (1988) computer simulation and modificationsof Noelle-Neumann's (1974) spiral of silence as a base, we testseveral theoretical modifications to the spiral of silence modelusing data gathered from people living in or near six nationalparks in Canada. Primary interest is on the ability of opinionthresholds, social group and weighing of others' opinions topredict the expression of opinion for particular issues.     

PUBLIC OPINION AND PARLIAMENTARY ACTION: RESPONSIVENESS OF THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Does the parliamentary behavior of members of parliament, parliamentaryparties, and government correspond with the public's preferencesregarding political issues? What conditions support the emergenceof congruence between public opinion and public policy? Thesequestions are central concerns of democratic theory. In thispaper, they are investigated empirically for the activitiesin the federal German legislature, the German Bundestag, between1949 and 1990. For this purpose, 94 time series of public opinionpolls have been combined with content analysis of more than3, 000 parliamentary documents (e.g. parliamentary questions,committe reports). If public opinion about a policy matter changes,approximately 60 percent of the respective parliamentary actionsare congruent with the direction of opinion change. The congruencebetween public opinion and public policy is greatest for opinionchanges in a conservative direction when the political statusquo is supported. Even more important than the direction ofopinion change is the public's majority opinion at the timeof parliamentary action.     

THE CHALLENGES OF SURVEYING PUBLIC OPINION IN AN EMERGING DEMOCRACY

Based on interviews with political party officials and journalistsas well as a content analysis of election poll stories, thispaper discusses opinion polling in Ghana's emerging democracy.Highlighted in the discussion are the relevance of surveyingpublic opinion in a neo-democracy and the journalistic reportingof poll results. The paper describes the surveying of publicopinion in a political climate in transition from long historicalexperience of authoritarianism and dictatorship including aperiod of a ‘culture of silence’, to freedom ofexpression, as a challenge. In an examination of local ‘polls’conducted by newspapers during the 1996 presidential and parliamentaryelections, it characterizes those exercises as unscientificand inaccurate. Technical details about surveys were mostlymissing in the stories, suggesting lack of poll reporting knowledgeamong journalists as a major challenge. There is an attemptto address these challenges for the purpose of strengtheningthe enabling role of political polling and journalistic reportingof poll results in Ghana's new democracy. Adequate responsesto these challenges would, it is proposed, contribute to a scientificand an objective assessment of issues in political decision–makingincluding measuring voter support for political parties andcandidates.     

新中国首批海军军官赴苏留学忆往

担任留苏学员队队长1951年5月的北京,和风拂面,春风正浓,前门外大栅栏内"庆太和"旅馆来了53位年轻的海军军官,小的只有17岁,大的30来岁,进行政审、体检,每人分配一套毛哔叽便装,一件呢大衣和一只帆布箱子,一片繁忙景象。他们是中国人民解放军海军第一批派往苏联学习的学员,在此做出国前的准备工作。     

THE ACCESSIBILITY BIAS IN POLITICS: TELEVISION NEWS AND PUBLIC OPINION

The influence of television news over public opinion is tracedto the ‘accessibility bias’ in processing information.In general, the argument stipulates that information that canbe more easily retrieved from memory tends to dominate judgments,opinions and decisions. In the area of public affairs, moreaccessible information is information that is more frequentlyof more recently conveyed by the media. Four different manifestationsor the accessibility bias in public opinion are described includingthe effects of news coverage on issue salience, evaluationsof presidential perfomance, attributions of issue responsibility,and voting choices.     

OPINION QUALITY IN PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH

In recent years, a number of new techniques have been developed—includingdeliberative polls and educational surveys—that attemptto gather measures of public opinion that is of higher quality(i.e. better informed or more deliberative) than that recordedin typical mass opinion surveys. This paper addresses severalgeneral sets of questions. What is meant by ‘quality’in public opinion? What criteria can be enumerated by whichthe quality of public opinion can be assessed? In grapplingwith these questions, the paper argues that conceptions of qualityin public opinion are inextricably bound to broader conceptionsof quality in democratic decision making, a complex processinvolving multiple phases and collective participants. In addition,a number of important contradictions and ambiguities underlieconceptions of quality in public opinion.     

AN APPLICATION OF STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING IN PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH: CONCEPTUALIZING PUBLIC AND OPINIONS

For some time now, theorists and investigators in the fieldof public opinion have discussed how opinion, public and thecombination of the two into a single term should be conceptualized.With regard to the first concept mentioned, the difference betweenattitude and opinion has been a central focus of dispute. Thisarticle demonstrates how a structural equation model, whereopinions are included as dependent variables, and attitudes,among other relevant variables, as explanatory variables, maycontribute to the discussion. Application of such a model, whichmay be considered the reflection of an attitude and opinionsystem, again forces the researcher to conceptualize the publicinvolved.     

ISSUE SALIENCE AND PUBLIC OPINION: ARE THERE CONSEQUENCES OF AGENDA-SETTING?

Recent studies have suggested that agenda-setting may influencenot only what we think about, but also what we think. This studyexamines the correlations between the salience of one issue(the federal budget deficit) and public knowledge, opinion,and behavior, using fall 1988 survey data. It finds statisticallysignificant correlations between issue salience and knowledgeabout the deficit issue, strength and direction of opinion regardingone possible solution to the issue, and political behavior relatedto the issue. These correlations remain statistically significantin multiple regression analyses where demographics and mediaexposure and attention measures are controlled simultaneouslyand in hierarchical blocks. Taken together, the findings reportedhere suggest that increased salience of the deficit issue wasaccompanied by increased knowledge of its possible causes andsolutions, stronger opinions, less likelihood of taking a neutralposition, and more likelihood of participating in politics throughsuch behavior as signing petitions, voting, attending meetings,and writing letters.     

THE PRO-EEC CONVERSION OF GREEK PUBLIC OPINION (1981-90)

Greece became an EEC member in 1981, following a parliamentaryvote in the then New Democracy (conservative)–controlledparliament. Opinion polls indicated though that were a referendumheld at the time, membership would have been rejected, as thegovernment had lost its popular support (and lost power in thecourse of that year) and an across-the-board anti-western majorityhad emerged in a country whose people's national identity wasfirst defined during and as a defense against the crusades.Ten years later, there exists in Greece a very large consensusin favor of EEC membership which includes even the communistleft, at least programmatically. The spectacular, and unprecedentedamong Community countries, pro-EEC conversion is the subjectof this paper. First, using the European Commission's Eurobarometerand Eurodim's Helleno-barometer data, the evolution of Greekpublic opinion towards the EEC is documented. Secondly, thetrend data in the various voting groups show that this conversionis basically the result of the transformation of the socialistelectorate from anti-EEC to pro-EEC, but with a lag behind thesimilar change in the party's (PASOK) policies during its eight-yearrule (1981–9). Thirdly, evidence is provided that anti-westernismhas not died out in Greece, but that it has both mellowed andbecome ‘selective’. So, we conclude that the pro-EECconversion was not the result of some general ‘Westernization’of Greek public opinion, but the outcome of a ‘learningexperience’: during their country's ten-year EEC membership,the Greeks discovered that the benefits from this internationalcommitment far outweighed the costs. In fact, it is argued thatthe pro-EEC conversion of Greek public opinion has contributedto the mellowing of its anti-westernism: whereas the crusadeswere instrumental in cutting the Greeks from Europe, the EECappears now the vehicle of their reintegration into a worldin whose development they have historically played a major role.     

NEW POLITICS? THE MABO DEBATE AND PUBLIC OPINION NATIVE TITLE IN AUSTRALIA

The Australian High Court's decision on the Mabo case, allowingnative title to Aboriginal Australians, became the major politicalissue during the second half of 1993. The Labor party's championingof this issue is suggestive of a fundamental change in Australianpolitics as predicted by ‘new politics’ theoristssuch as Ronald Inglehart. This paper examines the formationof opinions on the Mabo with particular reference to new politics.Several theoretical approaches to the formation of attitudesto political issues are examined. These comprise the new politics,political partisanship, nonattitudes, rational choice, asttitudinalpredispositions, and group socialization approaches. Littlesupport was found for the standard postmaterialist/materialistcleavage, although aspects of the new politics thesis were supportedas were aspects of the other approaches. In the light of thesefindings we outline a model of public opinion incorporatingelements of each approach.     

TV NEWS AND U.S. PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT FOREIGN COUNTRIES: THE IMPACT OF EXPOSURE AND ATTENTION

This article assesses the potential for US news coverage offoreign affairs to influence US public opinion about foreigncountries during the latter part of 1989 and early 1990, a timeof dramatic changes in central Europe. The study draws on twosources of data: content analysis of US network news and wireservice coverage of nine countries (West Germany, East Germany,the Soviet Union, Hungary, Poland, Great Britain, France, Japan,and Israel) over a six month period, and a nationally representativesurvey of 1,117 US adults which measured opinions about thesecountries, conducted in early 1990. The study shows that thereis an important relationship between the visibility of foreigncountries in TV news and US public opinion about these countries.TV is more important than newspapers for influencing publicopinion about foreign countries. And attention to foreign affairsnews, rather than simple exposure to news, best predicts generalliking of a country. Finally, attention to television news coveragehad a positive and significant influence on sympathy with Westand East Germany in 1990, even if one had German friends, relativesor ancestors, or had visited Europe.     

ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED U.S. PUBLIC OPINION: THE SPIRAL OF SILENCE DURING THE PERSIAN GULF WAR

This study analyzes actual and perceived support for the PersianGulf War in the United States. Data were collected from 292residents of New Castle County, Delaware, during the 1991 GulfWar. Results show that support for the war was not the strongconsensus reported in mainstream media. In fact, 53.1 percentof the respondents fell within the neutral, disagree, or stronglydisagree ranges of a support for the war scale. Only 6.6 percentof the respondents were in the strong support range. However,responses were significantly higher on an item measuring perceivedsupport for the war. Consistent with Noelle-Neumann's spiralof silence theory, perceived public support for the war wasa significant predictor of support for the war even after 13variables were controlled. The alternative explanation thatsubjects were ‘projecting’ their own perceptionsonto the public, is discounted by the finding that liberals,moderates and conservatives did not differ in their perceptionsof public support.