1. Public Opinion and Political Socialization Chapter 6

2. Public Opinion Attitudes or beliefs shared by some portion of the population How do people express their opinion? Power of Public Opinion - Bush / LBJ / Nixon What PO tells us? PO plays a major role in Elections / image

3. Public Opinion Consensus v Divisive (p 128) When political leaders adopt a position it is usually based on public opinion

4. Political Socialization Process by which people acquire political beliefs & attitudes How do people form public opinion? Agents of Political Socialization 1)Family 2)Media (tv / internet) - opinion leaders 3)Friends / co-workers - peer groups

5. Political Socialization (continue) *Today, many contend that the media’s influence on public opinion is equal to that of the families

6. Political Socialization (continue) 4) Education The more education a person receives the more likely to participate in politics 5) Personal experience, beliefs or opinion - Great Depression / Watergate

7. Political Socialization (continue) 6) Income Other factors: race, religion, gender, geographic region

8. Public Opinion Polls How do they work? - questioning a small sample of people who are representative of the population - most important principle in sampling is “randomness” - random sample- every person has an equal chance of being selected

9. Public Opinion Polls (continue) Do they work? Do they error?

10. The Media & Politics Media- channels of mass communication Traditional way: Print Media & Radio - fire side chats New media: Television & internet - 24 hr news

11. The Media & Politics (continue) 1) reporting the news 2) identifying public problems 3) Socialization of new generation 4) Provides public participation 5) Making Profits

12. discussion Why is media important? Does public opinion strongly influence what government does? How might a public opinion poll affect the President’s next move? At Issue- Internet Campaigns? (p 148) Bias media? (p 152)