Public Opinion and Political Socializaiton

What are the four necessities for polling?

Representative Sample, Random, Diversity, and Low Margin of error.

What is a Consensus?

A consensus is when their is a general agreement among the population.

What is a Divisive Opinion?

A divisive opinion is when their is a polarized opinion "50-50 Split".

What are the 7 factors that influence Political Socialization?

1. Family 2. Education 3. Peers 4. Media 5. Religion 6. Race/Ethnicity 7. Political Events

How did Literary Digest mess up between 1916-1936?

70% of the time between 1916-1936, the magazine predicted the election correctly. However, in 1936, the Literary Digest made a huge mistake/miscalculation in their prediction. The magazine predicted Landon to win, but their sample only went out to the wealthy during the height of the Great Depression. Landon only won two states and FDR won reelection.

What is Agenda Setting?

Agenda Setting is when the media will take an event and keep viewing it hoping to influence you.

Government's performance

American citizens evaluate the government's performance on a consistent basis. Depending on the crises or situation, Americans will either have a high/low trust level of government.

What is a low margin of error?

Anything above or below a positive or negative five.

What gender tends to vote more in elections?

Females

What are the present day polling organizations?

Gallup, Roper, Media Outlets, and University Polling

How is Public Opinion Formed?

It is formed by political socialization.

What is the gender gap?

It is the difference in how men and women view politics. An example of this would be the Feminist Movement.

What is the Generational (Cohort) Effect?

It is the major events in life impact your beliefs/attitudes.

What is the Lifestyle Effect?

Lifestyle Effect is as you get older your political beliefs will change.

What happened in between 1916-1936 that deal with opinion polls?

Literary Digest (a magazine company) took polling to another level by sending questionnaires to individuals, many being their own subscribers.

What happened in the 1800's that deal with opinion polls?

Many newspapers tried to spice up their political coverage by conducting straw polls or mail surveys. (unreliable, but fun to read.)

How does Media influence Political Socialization?

Media influences political socialization by Agenda Setting.

What is an example of a way to measure public opinion?

Opinion Polls is the method of systematically questioning a small, selected sample of respondents that are representative of the total population.

What is Political Socialization?

Political Socialization is the process that people acquire their political beliefs/attitudes, and often their identification.

What happened in the present day that deal with opinion polls?

Polling today has become very advanced. Technology has played a key role in developing random representative sampling. These polling companies can use small samples, usually less than 2,000 to figure out the voting behavior of the total population.

What is Public Opinion?

Pubic Opinion is the total of individual attitudes or beliefs shared by some portion of the adult population.

How does public opinion affect policy making?

Public opinion does not make public policy; rather, it restrains government officials from making truly unpopular actions/laws. Representatives on each level of government must use their own ideology and constituents desires to make what they feel is the best choice for their town, county, district, or state.

Sampling Errors

Sampling Errors because of type of polling-mail-inn polls, internet polls, campaign polling. Many of these don't use scientific methods to acquire data.

What is diversity?

Some companies can have an issue if they use quota sampling because they can be less accurate.

Telemarketing

Telephone polling fighting telemarketing issues. Some people don't respond or answer because of fear of talking to a telemarketer.

What age group is more likely to vote?

The 45 and above group.

What are the two types Political Events that influence Political Socialization?

The first type is Lifestyle Effect. The second type is Generational (Cohort) Effect.

Push Polls

The use of push polls is usually campaign funded polls that use misleading info to try and sway a person's opinion about a candidate.

Timing of Polls

Timing of polls are just a snapshot of that moment. Example 1948 Election.

What is a Representative Sample?

a small collection if the total population .

What is random?

each race has to have an equal shot.

Political Trust

the degree to which individuals express trust in the government and political institutions.

Poll Question

yes/no questions may not be truly reflective of a person's attitude towards an issue. People sometimes try to please the interviewer.