Expression Of Public Opinion Research Articles

The Impact of Ordinary Political Conversation on Public Opinion Expression: Is Existence of Discord Necessary?

This study examines the democratic impact of ordinary political conversation by tackling two interrelated research questions: (1) Does private conversation lead to more public opinion expression? (2) Is discord a necessary condition for conversation to exert its impact? Analysis of a survey conducted in Hong Kong shows that people who talk to family and friends about public affairs more frequently are more likely to engage in online political chats with strangers, to express a minority opinion, and to vote. However, the impact of conversation does not apply to every context of public opinion expression. There is also no robust evidence showing that the impact exists only among people who perceive differences in opinions in their social networks.

The Story of the Attempted Assassination of Justice Field by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of California

The Story of the Attempted Assassination of Justice Field by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of California HON. GEORGE C. GORHAM NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS Mr. Gorham is a life-long friend of Justice Field. He was his clerk when the latter held the Alcalde’s Court in Marysville, in 1850; and was Clerk ofthe U.S. Circuit Court ofthe District of California when it was organized, after Judge Field’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Bench. Subsequently, and for several years, he was Secretary of the U.S. Senate. Since his retirement from office he has resided in Washington. For a part ofthe time he edited a Republican paper in that city, but of late years he has been chiefly engaged in literary works, of which the principal one is the life and history of the late Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. 106 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY INDEX Page Attempted Assassination of Justice Field by a Former Associate on the State Supreme Bench........................................................................................... 107 Chapter I. The Sharon-Hill-Terry Litigation........................................................................... 107 Chapter II. Proceedings in the Superior Court of the State................................................... Ill Chapter III. Proceedings in the United States Circuit Court.................................................. 114 Chapter IV Decision ofthe Case in the Federal Court........................................................... 117 Chapter V The Marriage of Terry and Miss Hill.................................................................... 118 Chapter VI. The Bill ofRevivor.............................................................................................. 120 Chapter VII. The Terrys Imprisoned for Contempt................................................................ 121 Chapter VIII. Terry’s Petition to the Circuit Court for a Release—Its Refusal—He Appeals to the Supreme Court—Unanimous Decision against Him there................. 126 Chapter IX. President Cleveland Refuses to Pardon Terry—False Statements of Terry Refuted............................................................................................................... 131 Chapter X. Terry’s continued Threats to Kill Justice Field—Return ofthe Latter to California in 1889....................................................................................................... 135 Chapter XI. Further Proceedings in the State Court—Judge Sullivan’s Decision Reversed........................................................................................................... 136 Chapter XII. Attempted Assassination of Justice Field, Resulting in Terry’s Own Death at the Hands ofa Deputy United States Marshal............................................... 137 Chapter XIII. Sarah Althea Terry Charges Justice Field and Deputy Marshal Neagle with Murder..................................................................................................................... 145 Chapter XIV Justice Field’s Arrest and Petition for Release on Habeas Corpus................. 147 Chapter XV. Judge Terry’s Funeral—Refusal ofthe Supreme Court of California to Adjourn on the Occasion...................................................................... 149 Chapter XVI. Habeas Corpus Proceedings in Justice Field’s Case....................................... 150 Chapter XVII. Habeas Corpus Proceedings in Neagle’s Case............................................... 153 Chapter XVIII. Expressions of Public Opinion...................................................................... 161 Chapter XIX. The Appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Second Trial of Sarah Althea’s Divorce Case................................................... 179 Chapter XX. Concluding Observations................................................................................... 185 THE STORY OF THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION 107 Attempted Assassination of Justice Field by a Former Associate on the State Supreme Bench. The most thrilling episode in the eventful life of Justice Field was his attempted assassina­ tion at Lathrop, California, on the 14th day of August, 1889, by David S. Terry, who had been ChiefJustice ofthe State during a portion of Justice Field’s service on that bench. Terry lost his own life in his desperate attempt, by the alertness and courage of David S. Neagle, a Deputy United States Marshal, who had been deputed by his principal, under an order from the Attorney-General of the United States, to protect Justice Field from the assassin, who had, for nearly a year, boldly and without con­ cealment, proclaimed his murderous purpose. The motive of Terry was not in any manner connected with their association on the State supreme bench, for there had never been any but pleasant relations between them. Terry resigned from the bench in 1859 to challenge Senator Broderick of California to the duel in which the latter was killed. He en­ tered the Confederate service during the war, and some time after its close he returned to California, and entered upon the practice of the law. In 1880 he was a candidate for Pres­ idential elector on the Democratic ticket. His associates on that ticket were all elected, while he was defeated by the refusal of a number of the old friends of Broderick to give him their votes. It is probable that his life was much em­ bittered by the intense hatred he had engen­ dered...

Prenatal Testing, Reproductive Autonomy, and Disability Interests

The issue of prenatal testing and selective abortion has never received open public appraisal. This is somewhat regrettable. The interest in this area, however, is rapidly growing. In part this is a result of concerns about the rate of development in genetic knowledge and questions as to its application. For instance, there will be a huge increase in the scope of conditions or features for which we will be able to screen, some of which could hardly be described as significant. Further, for some time now, people with disabilities have had concerns about the practice of prenatal testing and selective abortion. This article looks at the relationship between reproductive autonomy, prenatal testing and associated practices, and the interests of people with disabilities. It asks whether such practices negatively affect the interests of such individuals, and if so, how. This is an important question for the formulation of public policy in this area. Although some groups have studied this issue in detail, policy bodies do not necessarily fully engage with their analyses. This may be a reflection of public confusion about this issue. To some degree, fear of causing offense may also inhibit both expression of public opinion and, in turn, policy analysis. This is unfortunate and needs to be acknowledged.I am grateful to participants of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine—King's College London—Oxford Consortium on Bioethics, 2003, for comments on an earlier draft of this paper and particularly to Professor Jonathan Glover and Dr. Bobbie Farsides for conversations relating to it.

Citizen Participation in Governance Through Representation: Issue of Gender in East Asia

In the modern age, although East Asia represents some of the most successful economies such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and (now) China, the level of political and administrative development in the region remains controversial. One of the major indicators of such politico‐administrative development is the extent of citizen participation in governance through various democratic means, including the formation and expression of public opinion, people's involvement in government decisions and deliberations, and direct representation of citizens in governing institutions. However, the direct representation of citizens is considered one of the most effective modes of participation in institutions such as legislature, cabinet, and bureaucracy. In this regard, although the representation of women in these governing institutions has gained global significance, it still remains relatively weak in most East Asian cases. This article evaluates the extent of such women's participation in governance through representation in East Asia, examines the major factors constraining this representation, and suggests remedial alternatives to improve the situation.

The “Sorbonne” of Abidjan: dream of democracy or birth of a public space?

Over the last few years, more or less spontaneous popular forums are developing in Abidjan. The oldest one is “La Sorbonne” in the Plateau district. It is so called in reference to the famous Parisian university. Young citizens would gather there to discuss politics. This gathering is commonly understood to be of idle persons, even by the local press. This paper contemplates the meaning of this phenomenon within the framework of the birth of the publicsphere in the new context of multipartyism. Drawing on observations and interviews, the paper dwells on what takes place, and argues that the sense constructed by the actors is ‘authentic’ democracy where the individuals can freely debate politics and express their opinions. The re-invigoration of multipartyism and particularly the new constitution issued from the civilian-military transition of the year 2000 contributed towards the spread of the idea of free speech among these young males coming from popular social backgrounds. The ongoing events of Côte d’Ivoire have thrown “ La Sorbonne” and other popular forums into civil society and consider it as the obvious expression of public opinion.

The Radicalizing Impact of Children on Mothers' Activism

This article focuses largely on the trajectory of mothers' activism and how it effects their personal and collective identities. The research derives from follow-up with women activists in Palestine/Israel after initial oral history research at the height of the Intifada. The controversial area of children's possibly radicalizing impact on mothers' pre-existing activism is explored, and possible directions of influence of the mothers' activism on their children are indicated. Evidence was found in women's life stories to contradict traditional stereotypical notions that women having children is an impediment to political activism, making them conservative out of territoriality in the interest of protection of the home. Stronger evidence exists of the social construction of protest stemming directly from the mothering role. That is, the need to protect their children from impending danger, through induction into the army, for example, might radicalize women to increase and intensify their pre-existing levels of activism. They might organize with other mothers in their immediate locus of community, and even nationally as both the women studied and the Argentine mothers did previously when they felt the need to demand information on the disappearance of their children. This impetus to a grassroots mothers' radicalism might even extend to mobilizing other women and to expression of public opinion, and to having an impact on national and international life as women and as feminists. Evidence also suggested that children might benefit by exposure to other possible roles of women leading to a sense of normalizing women's agency. Furthermore, children's mothers' activism might even stimulate them to engage in political activism of their own, particularly as mothers create events that include other young people as well as their own children. Thus, either having children or being a child of an activist can become a basis for cognitive liberation, or a transformational consciousness that propels participants into collective action.

By Popular Demand: Revitalizing Representative Democracy through Deliberative Elections

John Gastil challenges conventional assumptions about public opinion, elections, and political expression in this persuasive treatise on how to revitalize the system of representative democracy in the United States. Gastil argues that American citizens have difficulty developing clear policy interests, seldom reject unrepresentative public officials, and lack a strong public voice. Our growing awareness of a flawed electoral system is causing increased public cynicism and apathy. The most popular reforms, however, will neither restore public trust nor improve representation. Term limits and campaign finance reforms will increase turnover, but they provide no mechanism for improved deliberation and accountability. Building on the success of citizen juries and deliberative polling, Gastil proposes improving our current process by convening randomly selected panels of citizens to deliberate for several days on ballot measures and candidates. Voters would learn about the judgments of these citizen panels through voting guides and possibly information printed on official ballots. The result would be a more representative government and a less cynical public. America has a long history of experimentation with electoral systems, and the proposals in By Popular Demand merit serious consideration and debate.

From Social Perception to Public Expression of Opinion: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach to the Spiral of Silence

From Social Perception to Public Expression of Opinion: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach to the Spiral of Silence

Reflections on Public Discussion in the Mass Media

Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Tampere, FIN-33014 Tampere, tivepi@uta.fi Normative reflections upon democracy and the media have emphasized again and again that, in order to function properly, modern democracies require the media to provide “the means whereby the public debate” underpinning these societies “can take place” (Oreja et al. 1998: 9). Beetham and Boyle (1995: 13) think, for example, that the main task of the media, in addition to their ’watchdog’ role, is their role as a forum for public debate whereby they also serve “the expression of public opinion to the government”. According to Nordenstreng (1997: 18), in Scandinavian countries the “current ’functions’ of the media” have been condensed into information function, critique function and forum function, the last one involving the media “to provide the representatives of different views the opportunity for publicity”. But why does the putative forum function of the media get such an emphasis? The answer is quite simple: public discussion has been regarded as a cornerstone for a viable democracy. From “the ancient Greek thought onwards, the general conception of democracy” has been based on specific “assumptions related to the communication sphere”, one of them being that all “decisions are submitted to public discussions” (Splichal 1993: 5). Classically this principle was formulated by the 18 century’s progressive bourgeoisie in the demand that public opinion, being shaped in and through “the critical public debate among private people”, ought to be “the only legitimate source” of decisions and legislation in general (Habermas [1962] 1989: 53, 54). Public Discussion as Face-to-Face Conversation

Perceptions of 'Public Opinion' and 'Public' Opinion Expression

ABSTRACT A large number of studies have been devoted to the impact of perceptions of opiniondistributions on the expression of public opinion. In the present study we propose thatperceptions of opinion distributions have implications that go beyond influencingindividual issue stances, but rather influence respondents’ willingness to engage inpolitical activities. Specifically, we examine the link between opinion perceptionsand two dimensions of political participation: participatory behavior involving public expression of opinion, and participatory behavior that does not involve the publicexpression of a person’s opinion. Based on data collected as part of the AmericanNational Election Study, we examine the role that communication variables, groupmembership, attitude strength, and perceptions of public opinion play in predictingpublic and non-public forms of participation in the US. Implications for research inthe areas of political participation and public opinion expression are outlined.

Setting the Public Sphere in Motion: The Rhetoric of Political Bumper Stickers in Israel

Most members of the public have little opportunity to express political opinions via a mass medium. Political automobile bumper stickers provide such a possibility and can constitute a revival of Habermas's notion of the public sphere. This article examines how such bumper stickers function in the case of Israel, where political bumper stickers have become a ubiquitous medium of communication, expressing complex national-ideological messages that reflect individual opinions on a mass scale. Four elements have combined to bring about the development of this openly accessible political medium for the expression of public opinion: Israel's volatile political situation, a cultural predisposition to verbal expression on political topics, dramatic changes in the communication climate, and the particular status of cars and attitudes toward driving in the country. This mobile rhetoric has been used to set the public sphere in motion, reflecting five factors that account for the dynamism of the medium: the physical circulation of the messages on cars; the dialogic interaction and renegotiation of previously established ideological premises; the reflection, introduction, and maintenance of topics on the public agenda; the taking of power by the people; and the performative act of public expression.

Reading Public Opinion: How Political Actors View the Democratic Process (review)

Book Reviews 669 Reading Public Opinion: How Political Actors View the Democratic Process. By Susan Herbst. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998; pp. χ + 256. $16.00. Following her much acclaimed 1993 book, Numbered Voices: How Opinion Polling has Shaped American Politics, Susan Herbst seeks to broaden our conceptions of public opinion and its role in democratic governance. She goes beyond simple public opinion polling to consider the many ways in which political professionals and activists assess and understand citizens' preferences. Through depth interviews and surveys, she analyzes the "lay theories" of the politically active and reveals how polled opinions play only a minor role in democratic policy making. Herbst draws from a wide range of past scholarship, including early studies of public opinion and group formation, postmodern theories, cultural studies, political science, and communications in order to lay the foundation for her argument that public opinion is socially constructed and affected by institutions, technology, and political culture. In contrast to much of the experimentally based literature on political cognition which fails to take account of culture, language, and experience, Reading Public Opinion employs a rhetorical psychological approach and depth interviews which clearly demonstrate the pragmatic ways political actors evaluate public opinion. Herbst's data come from a case study of Illinois state government. She conducted depth interviews with 44 working political professionals and party activists: legislative staff members, reporters who covered the Illinois capitol, and Illinois delegates to the 1996 Democratic and Republican party conventions. These rich qualitative data were supplemented with a survey of 528 convention delegates from across the United States. Using interpretive methods for querying her informants and analyzing their discourse , Herbst convincingly demonstrates the sharply contrasting views of public opinion held by these three differently situated groups of participants in the policymaking process. For the staff members interviewed in this study, two indicators of public opinion were particularly relevant: interest group communications and the content of the mass media. The journalists, on the other hand, talked about public opinion in terms of interpersonal dialogue and conversations with citizens. The party activists relied on yet another conception of public opinion and were more comfortable with public opinions expressed through polls and through conversations with friends and acquaintances. Drawing on the language of her informants, Herbst adeptly demonstrates how one's location in the social and political world constrains the ways in which public opinion is constructed. Her informants view public opinion in very pragmatic, instrumental terms that are shaped by their professional roles. For example, staffers discuss public opinion in terms of "which segments of the public will react to a legislative maneuver and how such reactions will become manifest" (153). Public opinion , as measured by polls, is not particularly useful. Polls are not conducted 670 Rhetoric & Public Affairs regularly on statewide issues. Moreover, polls capture only a fleeting snapshot of the public mood and fail to communicate the intensity, directional dynamic, and organization of opinion which are necessary to formulate politically successful policy. Interest groups and journalists are far better situated to articulate public sentiments for staff members because they are informed, accessible, and perceived as able to persuade an otherwise amorphous and indifferent public. Interestingly, staff members rely on interest groups and media to convey public opinion despite their acknowledged biases. Staffers think of themselves as knowledgeable enough to "'see through' media bias and still glean some useful data about public opinion" (72). The political roles of journalists and party activists are quite different from those of legislative staff members, as are their conceptions of public opinion. Herbst argues, however, that understanding each actor's position in the democratic process explains the observed variations in definitions of public opinion. Journalists' views of public opinion as conversation with citizens/readers fit in with their anti-authority bias in political coverage. Party activists see public opinion as aggregations of individual opinions either through conversations or polling. The activists' disregard for interest group and media related expressions of public opinion is completely consistent with their roles as delegates representing citizens' opinions to the political leadership of their respective parties. Although convention delegates' views on public opinion are interesting to examine and help to broaden the inquiry beyond the...

Ownership Regulation and Socialisation: Rethinking the Principles of Democratic Media

The article examines three topics fundamental to contemporary media democratisation discourse: the principle of publicity, media agenda setting, and information subsidies. In complex democratic systems, the idea of publicity primarily refers to the media and the public sphere, where the “public use of reason” or “public discussion” can take place. The fundamental significance of the mass media for the political system is based on their role in the processes of (public) opinion formation and expression: the mass media help determine and demonstrate the limits of legitimate public discussion in society. Information subsidy limits access to information and inhibits free (political) expression by forcing the media to conform to particularistic political or commercial interests and beliefs of subsidisers. Because mass media have extremely important functions for democratic societies, they require public regulation to eventually help transform them into public services, and mass media into public service media. It is argued that media democratisation requires specific forms of regulation beyond market regulation and private subsidies in order to limit the power and control in the hands of commercial and political actors, to serve the political and economic autonomy of the media, to thwart the development of powerful coalitions between the state, capital and the media, and to encourage citizen access to the media. social management and control of the media and communication infrastructure. Forms of political and economic regulation of the media prevailing in the post-communist countries - re-nationalisation, privatisation, transnationalisation - are considered as enforcing the growth of commercial-paternalistic systems, and new forms of contents and structural regulations are suggested.

Doing it my way — broadcasting regulation in capitalist cultures: the case of `fairness' and `impartiality'

This article considers the suspension of the Fairness Doctrine in the USA and the legal instatement of the professional practice of impartiality in Britain as examples of two very different approaches to the regulation of broadcasting. These developments are located within the context of the shifts and changes of the post-Cold War period and are considered in terms of the highly differentiated unfolding of the bourgeois revolution in these two countries. It is also suggested that the practices of impartiality on the one hand, and of broadcaster advocacy or editorializing on the other, may be key factors for the outcome of a democratic process which seeks to identify the public interest and to foster the expression of public opinion.

Public Opinion as a Normative Opinion Process

This chapter provides a review of literature related to the conceptualization of the expression of public opinion as a normative opinion process. Public opinion is described, in part, as an expression of the interaction between individuals’ actual opinions and their perceptions of others’ opinions. It also is seen as an indicator of social norms on particular issues. The literature review describes, in detail, group processes and social comparison, and explains the development of group norms as they relate to communication and public opinion. In addition, the author examines normative influences and the public opinion process by describing two types of norms that may affect the extent of normative influences on expressed opinion and the manner in which norms may be accepted by individuals. A description of the potential for integrating norms in current public opinion research is presented.

Advanced Information Technology and Political Communication

Communication is an essential part of all political processes. As information technology increases the reach and capability of communication, it has created new political possibilities, including facilitating revolution and defeating congressional incumbents, and has given greater visibility to government activities. The political effects of advanced information technology are potentially dichotomous: inspiring populism based on ignorance, facilitating the expression of public opinion inspired by demagoguery, or engendering community of ethnic, religious, or single-issue interest groups.

In search of faith, part 2: Charter 77 and the return to spiritual values in the Czech republic

When Czechoslovakia was formally divided into two separate republics on 1 January 1993, the momentous gesture of separation occurred, ironically, exactly 16 years after another key event, whose purpose had been one of reconciliation and agreement. The release of Charter 77 came as a reward for the efforts of isolated but determined dissidents who had kept the cause of human rights alive since the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968. Even when Czech dissident activities were at their height in the 1980s the declaration was destined to gain no more than 1000 signatures; but from the vantage-point of today, when attitudes to politics, ethics and religious belief have become bitterly polarised, it is worth recalling the unity of beliefs and values which Charter 77 embodied, as well as the process of mutual discovery heralded by its appearance. The 5000-word document, launched on 1 January 1977 for the start of Political Prisoners' Year, focused on discrimination in the areas of education, public expression of opinion, access to information and religious conviction. It also called on Czechoslovakia's communist government to honour its human rights pledges under the 1968 international covenants of the United Nations, which had been reaffirmed in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and entered in the country's Register of Laws the following year.

La Révolution française et la presse de Suède.

French Revolution and the Swedish Press. The Swedish crown reacted vigorously to the news of the July 1789 events in Paris. Stockholm had been francophile and the ally of Ancien Régime France for more than a century. But what about the reaction of the Swedish population in the peripheral areas of the kingdom ? The reading of the articles published in Gävle's weekly, a small town in northern Sweden, allows us to measure better the real diffusion and reception of the events and the ideas reaching them from France over the 1789-1799 period. Although all the Swedish press drew its information from newspapers and gazettes written in German, the relation of the facts and the critical comments read in the columns of Weckoblad för Gefleborgs Lan are characterized by various factors. Censorship, reestablished in 1792, and the dependence on the Stockholm press, which had a monopoly on foreign policy information, limit in practice the expression of provincial public opinion. Finally, the time and distance factors, which separate Paris from the Scandinavians confines of Europe, as well as the idealization or diabolization of France and its revolution make the understanding of the events quite haphazard.

Public Opinion and the National Health Service: Patterns and Perspectives in Consumer Satisfaction

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the nature of public opinion concerning the National Health Service. Data from two series of national surveys covering the period 1983–92 are used to analyse trends in opinion. OPCS data for 1991–2 are examined in more detail to investigate the determinants of satisfaction with health services. A range of demographic, socio-economic and health status characteristics, as well as media coverage of health-related issues, are found to be significantly related to expressions of satisfaction with the NHS, in addition to recent experience of using health services. The complexity of the formation and expression of public opinion is acknowledged. In particular, the importance of taking note of the methodological implications and political context associated with expressions of public opinion is emphasised.

The new role of the media and public opinion under Mikhail Gorbachev

Before assuming power in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev seemed to be aware of the problems the Soviet Union faced and was ready to initiate reforms that included the transformation of the official media. After becoming general secretary he acted accordingly. Gorbachev encouraged to an unprecedented extent the expression of public opinion and openness in the media. He created institutions through which public opinion could be expressed. Gorbachev largely failed, however, to improve his own informational network and continued to rely too much on traditional channels of information (the KGB and the CPSU). This fact seems to have been partly responsible for his inability to respond adequately to constant changes in the political situation and in public attitudes.