Poli 361 - Unit 2

Gas Tax Holliday 2008

- Clinton and McCain want lower the gas tax - Obama and All economists (consensus) opposed it -- Literally, Clinton when asked could not name one economist who supported it (consensus)

Elite Consensus pt. 3

- Elite opinion has the greatest effect on public opinion when there is a consensus among elites These studies were done mostly in the 1990's and early 2000s and things have changed since then - People are divided on climate change even though there is elite consensus

Dual Frame Designs: Combining landline and cell phone samples

- Most polls have typically been done face-to-face or by landline phone, but most people have cell phones now more than landlines - Landlines are tied to households and cell-phones are tied to individuals - Respondents can have both a landline and a cell phone

Causes of Unit Non-Response

- People cannot be contacted due to: -- Physical barriers to accessing a household -- Patterns of times of day when members of the household are present People refuse to participate - Younger and Older respondents are more likely to participate - Lower socio-economic respondents are more likely to participate - Surveys can be long and people just don't have the time

Causes of Item Non-Response and "Don't Know" responses

- Respondent Characteristics - Question Wording - Interviewer Behavior

Unit Non-Response is a product of which two distinct processes?

- Some respondents cannot be found - Some respondent decline to participate

Partisan Polarization and Hyper-Partisanship

- are at extremely high levels - Newspaper endorsements can coincide with party support much of the time

The Lupia article studied an election in California that dealt with which of the following?

A ballot initiative about car insurance

Political Culture

A people's attitudes, beliefs, and factual assumptions about the basic nature of society and basic principles of politics Tolerance of those advocating unpopular ideas - If those who dissent are not allowed to present their positions publicly, there will be no opportunities to debate new ideas and no possibility for change.

In the Lupia piece, what was the design of the project that was used to collect data?

A survey

What is the research method that Mondak and Davis employ in their article?

A survey experiment

Which of the following is NOT one of the four main aspects of US political culture?

A. Rule of Law B. Political Efficacy C. Tolerance of those advocating unpopular ideas D. Trust in the system of government

ASKED AND ANSWERED: Knowledge Levels When We Will Not Take "Don't Know" for an Answer

By Jeffery Mondak & Belinda Creel Davis Background and Overview - It is widely accepted that relatively few Americans can be considered well informed about politics and government - Can Americans function competently, both individually and in the aggregate, in spite of the fact that information levels are so low But what if this is not the case, and political knowledge is ok, we are just measuring it incorrectly? -- Knowledge is typically measured by asking a bunch of factual questions -- "Don't Know" responses are typically considered the same as incorrect responses

Changing Channels

Can the media have an effect on political knowledge and attitudes if people just change the channel? Past studies have found that between 36% and 60% change channels to avoid politicians, news stories, and political ads they did not like or agree with. 62% of people in a Pew Research study said they watch news with remote in hand so they can change channels when they are not interested

celebrity endorsement

Celebrity endorsements are much more known than non-celebrity endorsements. - Much fewer people knew that The New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton, even among those high in news consumption. - But still those who consumed news were much more likely to know that NYT endorsed Clinton.

Data & Methods

Data Survey in Tallahassee, Florida - 15 knowledge questions National Election Study (1998) - 4 knowledge questions Method - Survey experiment -- Encouraged Don't know Responses (Group 1) -- Discouraged Don't know Responses (Group 2)

The results of the Mondak and Davis article suggest that researchers should be doing which of the following with respect to "Don't Know" responses in political knowledge research? Choose the BEST answer.

Discouraging "Don't Know" responses

Elite Consensus

Elite consensus functions the same way as other heuristics - For people who trust it, it minimizes the need for other information Elite consensus functions the same way as other heuristics - For people who trust it, it minimizes the need for other information

Knowledge of Endorsements pt. 2

Endorsements probably have some effect, but one thing is for sure, in order for them to have an effect, people need to know about them. Research has shown overwhelmingly that media consumption is heavily related to knowledge of endorsements For example, in one study 80% of people knew that Oprah supported Obama - Television information seeking was positively related to this endorsement

ASKED AND ANSWERED: Knowledge Levels When We Will Not Take "Don't Know" for an Answer pt. 2

Four Behavior States of being Informed Fully Informed - Respondent truly knows the answer to the question Partially Informed - The respondent either possesses an incomplete understanding, or the respondent can rule out an incorrect choice option on a multiple-choice item Misinformed - The respondent believes he or she knows the correct answer, but is mistaken Uninformed - The respondent holds no knowledge pertinent to the question The difficulty in terms of measurement is that the three choice options —correct, incorrect, and don't know—simply do not line up precisely with the four underlying behavioral states

Which of the following is true?

Generally speaking exposure to the media is not correlated (associated) with higher levels of political knowledge.

Results of the National Election Study in Tallahassee, Florida

Group 2 showed much lower levels of don't know responses compared to Group 1 About two-thirds of "Don't know" response were converted into correct answers Overall, simply discouraging DKs resulted an increase of over 23% (in one of the surveys) in the mean number of items answered correctly

Who did almost all pollsters incorrectly predict would win the 1948 Presidential Election?

Harry Truman

How does the Media Affect Political Learning

If the media's purpose is to inform citizens and they are uninformed, can we blame the media? Researchers have found that exposure to media is pretty much unrelated to political knowledge Other researchers have found that the more local news and soft people watch actually leads to lower political knowledge. However, newspapers and internet news seem to correlate with political knowledge Overall, with all the increased media sources we have today, people are no more informed than they were 20 years ago

Methods of dealing with Non-Response

List wise Deletion - Removing people from analysis who have missing items Incumbent Rule - Assume that "Don't know" responses break against the incumbent Survey Weighting - Using statistical measures to make samples more representative of the population - Imputation - The process of replacing missing data with substituted values

What are the reasons that people in the US have low levels of political knowledge?

Low Levels of Political Efficacy - Most people see political decisions in government as having little influence on their daily lives, so they don't pay attention. The cost of acquiring political information is higher than its benefits which are minimal. People can get by fairly well in the political world with minimal knowledge using shortcuts (more on this in a bit) Americans have low knowledge because they are exposed to less substantive news programming

Measurement of Public Opinion pt. 2

Margin of Error - Statistical Measure of how much the sample estimate from a poll is likely to deviate from the true amount in the full population Simple Random Sampling - Randomly choosing sample participants from the entire pool of the population. - You can also think of this way as putting the names of everyone in the population into a big hat, and then without bias, picking the names out of it. Random Digit Dialing (RDD) - Drawing a roughly random sample by randomly dialing telephone numbers. Cluster Sampling: Sampling in which we divide a population into smaller groups known as clusters. - They then randomly select among these clusters to form a sample.

Soft News

Media coverage that aims to entertain or shock, often through sensationalized reporting or by focusing on a candidate or politician's personality. - This is news articles that are not important topics. Like what Kim Kardashian said to Kayne and so on

Measurement Of Public Opinion pt. 2

New election prediction methods have surfaced since 2008 that don't even use surveys, but rather just statistical models If polls are accurate, how come they don't match up with vote counts?

Elite Consensus pt. 2

News consumption was positively related to the candidates' stances - This was true for all mediums (television, radio, newspaper, internet, ...) - People accepted Obama's stance, which was also the consensus stance among economists This example of research in this area asserts a few things - Expert opinion transmitted through the media can affect public opinion - Citizens use elite cues (heuristic) to form opinions -- The politically attentive are most likely to adopt these opinions

How Public Opinion Changes

Opinion Change happens in two main ways - Political events and/or leaders actively work to change people's opinions Generational Replacement - Change in overall attitudes caused by differences in opinion between young and old that gradually lead to a shift in overall opinion Political Ideology - An interconnected set of ideas that forms and organizes our attitudes about politics - Conservatism - Liberalism - Libertarianism

Political knowledge and attention to issues pt. 2

Party Identification - A sense of belonging to one or another of the political parties Agents of Socialization - family, friends, school, the media, etc. - The agents must be credible and The agents must be seen as relevant to politics

Knowledge of Endorsements

People can use endorsements and other Heuristics (shortcuts) to help them navigate the political world - Heuristics are shortcuts people can use so that they don't need to know everything about a person or issues but can still make the 'right' decision Mixed results as to weather newspaper endorsements matter - Newspaper circulation is low

Political knowledge and attention to issues

Political Socialization Political Socialization is the process of learning political values and factual assumptions about politics. Political Identities - The images of who you are, to the extent that your identity carries political content, such as your religion or your membership in a political party

Measurement of Public Opinion

Poll - A set of questions asked of a carefully constructed sampling in a population, selected in such a way that the people in the sample are likely to mirror the total population fairly accurately Random Sample - A sample drawn from the full population in such a manner that every member of the population has an equal probability of belonging to the sample

Foundations of Public Opinion

Public Opinion and Political Culture Public Opinion - The collective opinion of citizens on a policy issue or a principle of politics. -- The combined voices of all the people in a society on political issues

According to Public Opinion polling, which issue has remained relatively stable over time?

See picture on the last card for evidence of this claim, but it is support for a government health insurance. It has consistently stated at 40% from 1970 until present day.

Literary Digest Poll

Starting in 1920, the Literary Digest conducted polls about the presidential election by polling those with a magazine subscription, a registered car, or a telephone. But failed to include FDR's blue collar supporters. In which in 1936, it made an inaccurate poll taken on upcoming the presidential election. It over-represented the wealthy and thus erroneously predicted a Republican victory. Who at the time, the Republican Candidate was the Governor of Kansas, Alfred Landon.

Which is a major premise that the Mondak and Davis piece challenge? Choose the BEST answer.

That "Don't Know" responses are the same as incorrect answers

Measurement Of Public Opinion

The Accuracy of Public Opinion There is no standardized way of conducting public opinion poll or collecting public opinion data. Gallup may have a different method than Pew, Roper and so on Since people are not polling experts, they tend to rely on media discussion of polling accuracy. However, the media also discusses accuracy in terms of "the polls" rather than individual polls and methodology.

Political Efficacy

The belief that one's political participation really matters and that one's vote can actually make a difference. That all voters have the ability to influence the government and politics and that they can affect what the government does.

Which of the following is NOT a reason that people in the US have low levels of political knowledge?

The media and education system does a subpar job of conveying important political information.

Issue Stands of Candidates

The media's effect on issue knowledge tells a different story than that of political knowledge News and debates are both good predictors of issues knowledge - If people watch debates or consume news, they tend to know where candidates stand on issues. - The effect of debates was stronger on learning candidate issues positions

Issue Stands of Candidates pt. 2

The media's effect on issue knowledge tells a different story than that of political knowledge News and debates are both good predictors of issues knowledge - If people watch debates or consume news, they tend to know where candidates stand on issues. - The effect of debates was stronger on learning candidate issues positions. Watching Debates and watching commentary about debates are two different things

Political Knowledge and Learning

Through The Media and During Elections: Political Knowledge - More than 37% of people cannot name one right guaranteed by the first amendment - Only 26% of Americans can name all three branches of government - Only 23% know who the Chief Justice of the United States is - Only 54% know that the Vice President breaks a tie vote in the Senate - People know very little about other aspects of political life - How long senators serve for, which party controls each house, and more

Representative Sampling and Non-Response

We can never get a truly random and thus perfectly representative sample of the population - Some people are unreachable because they are away on vacation, in prison, in the hospital etc.

Survey Non-Response

When people selected to be in the sample do not respond to a survey, which may happen for a variety of reasons - Unit Non-Response: When an entire observation is missing from our sample Item Non-Response - When some data is available for an observational unit but at least one measure of interest is missing. - Ex. the picture above, the labels are missing making this graph useless.

Trust in the system of government

While it is encouraged to criticize elected officials, people must believe that the overall system is fair. However, since the 70's, trust in government remains in the 10-20% range.

Hard News

media coverage focused on facts and important issues such as a new law, a new executive order or important current events

Rule of Law

principle that the law applies to everyone, even those who govern. That NO ONE is above the law

news grazing

the act or practice of switching television channels frequently to watch several programs. This news grazing is related to lower levels of political knowledge and higher levels of cynicism - This is a serious issue as research has shown that exposure to multiple and diverse points of view leads to greater acquisition of political knowledge

Respondent Characteristics

the characteristics of the person you are sampling (i.e. socioeconomic class, political beliefs, etc.)

What is the main finding of the Lupia Article?

uniformed voters could make the same decision as if they were well informed by using shortcuts (heuristics)