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1.
This study uses the contemporary debate over agricultural biotechnologyto conceptualize a theoretical model that can be used to explainhow citizens reach judgments across a range of science and technologycontroversies. We report findings from a mail survey of NewYork State residents that depicts a ‘low information’public relying heavily on heuristics such as value predispositions,trust, and schema to form an opinion about agricultural biotechnology.Science knowledge does play a modest role, with the news mediaserving as an important source of informal learning. Contraryto expectations and past research, we do not find any directeffects for news attention on support for agricultural biotechnology.Deference to scientific authority is a central value predispositionshaping support for agricultural biotechnology. Positively correlatedwith education, deference to scientific authority is the strongestinfluence on support for agricultural biotechnology in our model.Part of the variable's influence is direct, but part of it isalso indirect, as deference to scientific authority is a keypredictor of both trust in the sponsors of biotechnology andgeneralized reservations about the impacts of science. Received for publication July 18, 2005. Revision received December 2, 2005. 相似文献
2.
The article aims to explain why attitudes toward gender equalityand gender relations in society vary between individuals andcountries. The hypotheses that are tested stem from two partlyconflicting theories of modernization. Wilensky (2002) advocatesa ‘structural’ explanation for variation in genderattitudes, while Inglehart (1990, 1997) suggests a ‘values’explanation. The author conducts a three-part analysis: an individual,a national, and a multilevel analysis. The structural explanationis better able to account for individual level gender attitudes.Values do, to some extent, serve as the mechanism that producesnational level variation. Inglehart (1990, 1997) is also rightin suggesting that the effect of values on gender attitudesincreases with increasing development. Received for publication August 30, 2005. Revision received December 10, 2005. 相似文献
3.
COPING WITH FREEDOM AND UNCERTAINTY: PUBLIC OPINION IN HUNGARY, POLAND, AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1989-1992
For the first time in more than four decades, Central and EastEuropeans can openly voice their opinion about everything fromthe price of bread to the performance of the government. Publicopinion has become a dynamic factor in the decision-making processof the new governments of Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakiaand will play an important role in determining what kind ofpost-communist societies develop in these countries. In an effortto explore public sentiment about what kind of society theywant to develop, we analyze results from 14 nationwide, representativepublic opinion polls commissioned by the United States InformationAgency's Office of Research between June 1989 and January 1992in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. After tracing trendsin public opinion over this period, we look at some aspectsof the political culture in these countries. We then reporton our preliminary attempts to understand the determinants ofindividual preferences for either a society that emphasizesindividual freedom and responsibility (‘individual opportunities’society) or one in which the state assumes responsibility forassuring public welfare (‘state guarantees’ society). 相似文献
4.
The expansion of democracy in the world has been paradoxicallyaccompanied by a decline of political trust. By looking at thetrends in political trust in new and stable democracies overthe last 20 years, and their possible determinants, we claimthat an observable decline in trust reflects the post-honeymoondisillusionment rather than the emergence of a more criticalcitizenry. However, the first new democracies of the ‘thirdwave’ show a significant reemergence of political trustafter democratic consolidation. Using data from the World ValuesSurvey and the European Values Survey, we develop a multivariatemodel of political trust. Our findings indicate that politicaltrust is positively related to well-being, social capital, democraticattitudes, political interest, and external efficacy, suggestingthat trust responds to government performance. However, politicaltrust is generally hindered by corruption permissiveness, politicalradicalism and postmaterialism. We identify differences by regionand type of society in these relationships, and discuss themethodological problems inherent to the ambiguities in the conceptof political trust. 相似文献
5.
'NO OPINION'-FILTERS: A COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1
Research on the use of ‘no opinion’-filters suggeststhat respondents are the less likely to offer a substantiveresponse the more strongly the filter question is worded. Aseries of experiments is reported that demonstrates that filterquestions influence respondents' perception of their task: themore strongly the filter question is worded, the more respondentsassume that they will have to answer difficult questions, andthat they may not have the required knowledge. Accordingly,filter questions discourage respondents from offering globalopinions that they may hold. In line with this assumption, allrespondents who reported not having an opinion in response toa filter question, subsequently provided substantive responseson a global opinion question—presumably because the globalquestion asked was less demanding than expected on the basisof the filter. Analyses of these substantive responses indicatedthat respondents who initially reported not having an opiniondiffered from respondents who reported having one. Methodologicalimplications of these findings for the use of filter questionsand for research on the nature of ‘floating’ arediscussed. 相似文献
6.
Looking for Opinion Leaders: Traditional vs. Modern Measures in Traditional Societies 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1
Weimann Gabriel; Tustin Deon Harold; van Vuuren Daan; Joubert J. P. R. 《Int. Journal of Public Opinion Research》2007,19(2):173-190
Since the introduction of the opinion leadership conceptualization,both practitioners and academics have been keenly interestedin its applicability in modern society. Numerous studies havebeen conducted to identify potential opinion leaders, learnof the characteristics distinguishing them from their ‘followers,’and understand how they exert their personal influence to changeopinions and behaviors of the masses. Despite the growing researchon opinion leadership, the identification of appropriate opinionleaders for practical purposes continues to be a challenge.Several methods were used to identify opinion leaders. The existenceof numerous methods and their use in various societies, socialsettings and cultures and the variance across domains of opinionleadership raises questions on the applicability and validityof the modern, advanced measures when applied to other socialsettings. The present study is in fact a first attempt to applythe modern personality strength (PS) scale to a traditionalcommunity. The PS scale was found to be an efficient, valid,and useful instrument to identify opinion leaders in numerousstudies. However, it was always used, tested, and validatedin Western societies (e.g., Germany, USA, and Israel). Whenwe applied the method in the Skukuza community, a small villagein South Africa, the findings revealed the inapplicability ofthe scale in a traditional community. Several factors are suggestedto explain the futility of the PS scale in a traditional society. 相似文献
7.
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. 相似文献
8.
Three aspects of the ‘most important problem’ questionused in agenda-setting research to measure issue salience amongthe public were examined. A split-ballot design in a state-widesurvey compared versions of the public agenda with a socialframe of reference versus a personal frame of reference, versionsusing the traditional term ‘problem’ versus ‘issue’,and the effects of question order. High correlations betweenthe different versions were found in all three sets of comparisons. 相似文献
9.
Rusciano Frank Louis; Fiske-Rusciano Roberta 《Int. Journal of Public Opinion Research》1990,2(4):305-322
This paper presents a content analysis of the manner in which‘world opinion’ is used in stories and editorialsof two nations' major newspapers. The authors studied the InternationalHerald Tribune and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for themonths of February, March, and April 1986 for articles whichcontained implicit or explicit references to ‘world opinion’.These refernces were studied using a pre-designed survey instrument,which analyzed several features of the term's usage. Topicsfor discussion included: (1) the various syonyms for world opinion;(2) the agenda for world opinion; (3) the timing of referenceto particular issues on the agenda; (4) the moral and pragmaticcomponents of world opinion; and (5) the link between worldopinion and the ‘international isolation’ of nationsor individuals. The paper concludes by combining the resultsof the study into a preliminary definition of ‘world opinion’,based upon the common usage of this term. The definition comparesthe characteristics of ‘world opinion’ and ‘publicopinion’, and discusses the possible ramifications ofunderstanding the concept in this manner. 相似文献
10.
In his 1987 presidential address to the annual AAPOR meeting,J. Ronald Milavsky stated that ‘we need to start payingmore attention to the public's estimate of the worth of surveyresearch’ (1987, p. 447), but the literature shows littleresponse to that call. Historically, broad-stroked conclusionsabout public attitudes have been positive, but the data arescanty and there has been little analysis of the structure ofopinions. In this study, we take a step in examining what thepublic thinks about how we know what it is thinking. In additionto standard direct questions about the accuracy and frequencyof polls, we developed indirect measures designed to tap attitudesabout polling as a mechanism in policy representation. Our evidencesuggests that poll confidence is multi-dimensional and thatthe indirect questions provide insights not apparent when peopleare asked directly about polling. We suggest additional researchpaths to explore the nature, sources, and implications of bothpositive and negative dimensions to attitudes about public policypolls. 相似文献
11.
The dictatorship that ruled Greece between 1967–74 hadlasting consequences on the country's political culture. FromWorld War II and the Greek civil war until the dictatorship'scollapse, pro-Western, anti-communist, pro-business, sociallytraditional values had dominated public opinion. The dramaticfall of the dictatorship amidst a ‘national tragedy’made it a scapegoat and made what it stood for very unpopularespecially among the younger generation. So, when the lattercame of age, it contributed to the emergence of a new set ofvalues that were anti-rights, anti-Western, anti-business, anti-traditionalistand even historically revisionist, and were majoritrian in the1980s. These values have been so strongly entrenched that neitherthe Panhellenic Socialist Movement's (PASOK's) poor record inpower, nor the indictment of some of its leaders for seriousscandals in 1989, nor even the emergence, under PASOK rule,of a new more moderate generation, have helped the right toregain the absolute majority of the votes so to govern the country,although it has led to a partial moderation of the radical ‘juntageneration’. 相似文献
12.
Respondent's opinions about survey research are regarded asan expression at the individual level of the general survey-takingclimate. Based on a review of the research about ‘surveyson surveys’ five relevant dimensions of the respondent'sopinion about surveys are distinguished: survey enjoyment, surveyvalue, survey cost, survey reliability, and survey privacy.Items related to these aspects are used to develop an ‘Opinionsabout Survey Scale’. The results of an analysis of thepredictive validity of the scale support the expectations basedon the theory of planned behavior. Opinions about surveys areassociated with the intention to participate in future surveysand with hesitation to fill out the questionnaire of a mailsurvey. Opinions are not related with participation in a follow-upmail survey. The results of the wave analysis of a mail surveyare a clear indication that nonrespondents have more negativeopinions about different aspects of surveys. This also meansthat the measurement of opinions is biased. However, becauseof this bias it is worthwhile and useful to measure these opinions. 相似文献
13.
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. 相似文献
14.
MEDIA COVERAGE OF COCAINE AND ITS IMPACT ON USAGE PATTERNS 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1
Anti-drug efforts in the USA have mainly focused on reducingsupply through interdiction and law enforcement. These effortsnotwithstanding, the perceived availability of cocaine by highschool seniors gradually increased from 1977 to 1991. In theearly 1980s, cocaine use by this group was fairly constant.There was a brief rise from 1983 to 1986 which could be ascribedto the introduction of crack. Then, there was a steady dropfrom 6.7 percent in 1986 to 1.4 percent in 1991 which couldbe explained by the press presenting salient anti-cocaine messagesto high school seniors. The drop was not due to ‘lifestyle’factors like religious commitment or number of hours spent onhomework. The strong influence of persuasive information suggeststhat drug control policy is likely to be more effective whendirected at demand than at supply. 相似文献
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16.
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. 相似文献
17.
Over the last few years, questions in the Australian polls aboutthe rate of immigration and the rate of Asian immigration havegenerated a remarkably wide range of response. While most ofthe polls conducted since 1984 suggest majority opposition tothe rate at which immigrants, including Asian immigrants, havebeen coming to Australia, other polls suggest majority support.Differences between the 1984 poll figures and some of the morerecent polls may reflect changes over time. Other polled differencesalmost certainly reflect differences in the way the questionswere worded. However, the most remarkable if least obvious causeof the difference seems to be the contexts in which the questionswere asked; more precisely, differences in the length and focusof the various questionnaires in which questions on immigrationwere embedded. Public opinion on the rate of immigration isnot only ‘soft’, it is created in the very attemptto measure it. Under these circumstances there is little pointin trying to isolate ‘majority opinion’ or in attemptingto establish which of the polls provides the most accurate reading.Where different readings are a product of differing contextsthey may be best understood in terms of competing conceptionsof what ‘public opinion’ itself is all about. 相似文献
18.
The present study integrates two concepts: the notion of opinionleadership, as conceptualized and measured by the Strength ofPersonality (SP) scale, and the agenda-setting process. Thus,we suggest and test a two-step flow model in which certain individuals,the influentials, identify emerging issues in the mass mediaand then diffuse these issues to others via their personal networks.Based on a series of six national surveys conducted in Germany(1990) measuring issue salience and various personal characteristics,this study highlights the role certain individuals play in theemergence of the public agenda. The degree to which individualscan be influenced, measured by the SP scale, is found to bea powerful predictor of the formation of personal agendas, withhigh SP individuals differing from others in their identificationof emerging public issues. However, the analysis reveals thecomplexity of these relationships: they depend on the obtrusivenessof the issue, and they vary over time and location (East orWest Germany). The findings encourage the empirical pursuitof the suggested ‘two-step flow model’ as appliedto the agenda-setting process. 相似文献
19.
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. 相似文献
20.
The term pluralistic ignorance refers to erroneous beliefs heldby a group of individuals about the attitudes or behavior ofothers. In this study, we examined the degree to which collegestudents in Singapore misconceive their peers’ sexualattitudes and behavior. The data for this study came from aweb-based survey involving a random sample of 534 college studentsin Singapore. The results indicate widespread evidence of pluralisticignorance; that is, students believed that their peers weresignificantly more sexually active than was actually the case.The data also suggest that the students formed such erroneousimpressions of peers on the basis, in part, of the students’media consumption and of the students’ own sexual attitudes. 相似文献