Chapter 8: Mass Media and Public Opinion Honors Classes, October 8, 2013

1. Chapter 8: Mass Media and Public OpinionHonors Classes, October 8, 2013

2. Section 1: The Formation of Public Opinion • This is familiar turf: public opinion is formed by many of the same factors that help us form our political identity. • The family is the most important. • Schools important, too.

3. Other factors identified by the book • Media • How many hours a day are TV sets on in the average American home? At least 7 hours a day(per your book). • And a recent study found that we’re surfing the web 1 out of every 12minutes.

4. Other influences on opinion • Peer groups. • Most of us are conformists in some way. • “Opinion leaders” (i.e., anyone who has an unusually strong influence on others) • Q for the class: Who influences you? • Historic events • See, e.g., the Great Depression; it made Democrats of a lot of people.

5. Section 2: Measuring Public Opinion Four ways: 1. Elections • Your book makes the interesting point that elections are not necessarily indications of a mandate. • People vote for a candidate for lots of reasons – nice guy, good smile, etc. This doesn’t necessarily translate into a strong mandate. • And how big a margin of victory do you need for a mandate? George W. Bush, after winning 50.7% of the popular vote in 2004 election: "I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.It is my style.”

6. Measuring public opinion (cont.) 2. Interest groups • Note that the extent and intensity of interest can be hard to gauge. • Interest groups are good at using things like “astroturf” efforts.

7. Measuring public opinion (cont.) 3. Media • But note that these are hardly mirrors of society; rather, they are reflections of a vocal minority. 4. Personal contacts • Beware the anecdotes and the echo chamber. • Also, the most vocal are usually the ones who have a complaint. People don’t call a Congressman to tell him how great they have it.

8. Sec. 2 (cont.) So that leaves polling. Warm-up exercise: • Form groups of 3-4. • You’ve been hired to conduct a poll to see which presidential candidate is winning. • Who will you poll? • How will you poll people? • What will you ask? Prepare 3-5 questions you will ask. • Hold onto your poll. We will revisit later in class.

9. Determining Public Opinion: Polling "If democracy is supposed to be based on the will of the people, then somebody should go out and find out what that will is." Dr. George Gallup Gallup made his name in 1936 election. The Literary Digest poll (which used phone books and car registrations) showed 1,293,669 for Landon and972,897for FDR. Gallup used random sampling and predicted FDR.

10. Polling nuts and bolts Needed for a reliable poll (3% + margin of error): Random sample – any given voter has an equal chance of being polled. Large sample size (at least 1,065 people for populations > 500k (some say 1,500), which requires around 15,000 calls) Unbiased, clear questions

11. Other relevant terms “Tracking polls” • The same poll given over an extended period of time. • Done to measure changes in public opinion. • See, e.g., http://www.gallup.com/home.aspxhttp://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspxhttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/)

12. Other relevant terms (cont.) “Straw poll” • Not really a “poll” as we’re using that term; it is more just a nonbinding vote of a group of people. • Example: Getting a show of hands at a political meeting. • Often misleading; usually no attempt to be scientific; participants may be swayed by others. • Most famous one may be the Ames Straw Poll (a good show of candidate strength in Iowa before its caucus).

13. Other relevant terms (cont.) “Push polls” • Definitely not a “poll” as we’re using this term. Designed to influence the participant instead of gathering information from him/her. • See Bush/McCain 2000 campaign in SC. • A Bush campaign push poll: “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” • The reality: McCain and his wife adopted a daughter from Bangladesh. • The result: Bush won SC. Pass the Maalox, please.

14. Other relevant terms (cont.) “Sampling error” – often confused with “margin of error.” Don’t do that. • Sampling error is the simply the difference between the results of two identical polls taken at the same time. • Ex: One poll says 53% believe x and another says 47% do? The sampling error is 6%.

15. Other relevant terms (cont.) • Margin of error is the range of responses within which poll results are likely to be achieved 95% of the time. • Example: If a poll showed an approval rating of 42% with a margin of error of 3.0 percent, that means that if you ran that poll 100 times — asking a different sample of people each time — the approval rating would be between 45% and 39% in at least 95 of those 100 polls. • If you want the math, it’s 1 divided by the square root of the number of people polled. The more people polled, the smaller the margin of error.

16. Some possible scopes for a poll like the ones you just prepared All eligible voters All eligible, registered voters All eligible, registered, likely voters All eligible, registered, likely voters in swing states All eligible, registered, likely voters in swing states who are independent Etc.

17. So how did the class polls do? Did you use random sampling? Who is the sample? Was the sample size large enough? Were the polling techniques likely to affect the outcome? If so, how? Were the questions clear and unbiased? Did they lead the survey participant in any way?

18. Additional resources A real poll: http://images.politico.com/global/2012/09/battlegroundpoll.html

19. There are LOTS of polls See, e.g., http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx http://pewresearch.org http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html One guy stood out last election cycle: Nate Silver. He called 50 out of 50 states. Uses an aggregation method. Wanna know more? Check out his site: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/pollster%20ratings

20. Questions raised by polls • Are they in fact reliable? • Is the wording biased in some way? • Class exercise: Write three versions of a question about people’s view of global warming – one neutral, one designed to elicit negative response and one to elicit positive. • Ethical issue: should pollsters have to disclose the person/party for whom they are polling?

21. Is there an institutional bias? http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/calculating-house-effects-of-polling-firms/

22. More questions Do people – • understand the question? • How can a general question elicit meaningful data about a complicated subject (e.g., Obamacare, immigration)? • have a meaningful choice of answers? • What do terms like “somewhat” or “most of the time” mean? • answer truthfully? • Want to impress the poll-taker? Embarrassed at having no opinion? • have views that are consistent, both internally and over time? • See, e.g., Presidential approval ratings http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-presapp0605-31.html • Also, we often are internally inconsistent. For instance, many people like the idea of small gov’t but love the reality of their benefits. Many are ideological conservatives but operational liberals.

23. More questions (cont.) • Is there a “bandwagon” effect? • Do they influence elections? • May discourage voters from voting • Exit polls have presented problems in the past (see NBC’s call for Reagan in 1980 at 5:15 West Coast time; release of Florida exit polls)

24. Class exercise The Associated Press ran stories using classified information. After the stories ran, the Department of Justice subpoenaed the journalist’s phone records to see who he had been talking with. Look at the following 3 polls on DOJ’s subpoenaing the phone records. Which question do you think had the most responses saying people approved of what DOJ did?

25. Class exercise (cont.) “Do you approve or disapprove of the Justice Department’s decision to subpoena the phone records of AP journalists as part of an investigation into the disclosure of classified information?” “The AP reported classified information about U.S. anti-terrorism efforts and prosecutors have obtained AP’s phone records through a court order. Do you think this action by federal prosecutors is or is not justified?” “As you may know, after the AP ran news stories that included classified information about U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, the Justice Department secretly collected phone records for reporters and editors who work there. Do you think that the actions of the Justice Department were acceptable or unacceptable?”

26. Resultshttp://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/22/polling-when-public-attention-is-limited-different-questions-different-results/Resultshttp://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/22/polling-when-public-attention-is-limited-different-questions-different-results/

27. Bottom Line on Polls • Be wary of them. • They may be intentionally biased. • Even if not intentionally biased, they may be flawed in some way. • And what do they really tell you? How reliable are the answers that people give?

28. Part 3: The Mass Media The media are the primary sources of information about government and politics (with TV the main source for 80% of the population…maybe).

29. Newspapers are in decline

30. Internet is filling the gap quickly Should we care? What does this mean for the quality of news?

31. Impact of the media on politics • The media help shape the public agendaby • Choice of what’s covered and what’s not (“gatekeeping”) • Choice of words • Fox News calls the gov’t shutdown a “slimdown” • Is someone a terrorist or a freedom fighter? • Pro-choice vs. pro-life, etc. • Opinion pieces, etc. • Compare: • http://www.foxnews.com with http://www.nytimes.com. • For daily front pages, see http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/topten.asp

32. Class exercise • Compare two different articles on the same topic. • Is one obviously conservative? One obviously liberal? • How did you reach your conclusions – what words were used (or not used) that support your conclusion?

33. Impact on politics (cont.) • Role of parties is diminishing as a result of the media (particularly TV) • No longer needed as a source of information • Candidates no longer depend on them to reach voters • Allows for political rookies to succeed; no longer the loyalty to the party bosses. • Case in point: Ted Cruz.

34. Impact on politics (cont.) • Changing the dynamics of campaigning • More emphasis on appearance and style, less on substance • Messages must be packaged into sound bites In the last election the typical sound bite on TV lasted just under 8 seconds.

35. Limits on Media Influence • Maybe it’s not so influential? • After all, only a small minority of voters (book says 10%-15%) are “well informed” about the issues and candidates. • Selection bias: we seek out information that will confirm our worldview. • Most TV won’t carry content related to public affairs. Why? Advertising $$. • So what are we left with? It all gets back to “we the people.” In a sense, the ease of access to information makes it harder to digest it (and more important that we do so).