Public Opinion Research Articles

Indonesia’s ambivalence in the Russia-Ukraine war: Balancing equal sovereignty norms with a familial approach

ABSTRACT This article examines Indonesia’s position during the Russia-Ukraine war, highlighting the tension between its traditional foreign policy principles and pragmatic approach to international conflicts. Indonesia’s support for UN resolutions condemning Russia, compared with its avoidance of directly naming Russia as the aggressor, reveals an ambivalence rooted in the paradox of upholding equal sovereignty norms while promoting a ‘familial’ approach to conflict resolution. This paradox is evident in Indonesia’s simultaneous support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity while calling for peace negotiations, which equates the aggressor with the victim. The study explores the historical context of Indonesia’s foreign policy, emphasizing sovereign equality and non-alignment, and how these principles are challenged by the current geopolitical landscape. Through qualitative content analysis of official statements, public opinion and media narratives, the article argues that Indonesia’s ambivalence in the Russia-Ukraine war reflects a tension between its normative commitments to sovereignty and pragmatic needs to peacefully end conflict.

Contra solidarity: revolution and counterrevolution in the united states and nicaragua

ABSTRACT This article explains how the Contra War was shaped by interaction between revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries both before and after Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution. In successfully overthrowing the Somoza government, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) built a multilayered revolutionary coalition out of the fractured Nicaraguan politics created by the Cold War developmental state. In response to the FSLN’s successful solidarity politics, the US government, from the beginning of the revolution, through the Contra War in the 1980s, applied a diverse set of tactics that drew inspiration from the successes of Nicaragua’s revolutionary practice in order to undermine the revolution. This adaptive response helped radicalise Nicaragua’s revolution, widened support for the Contra War, despite adverse US and global public opinion, and made possible the unravelling of the Iran-Contra Affair.

A new perspective to understand public response to the Typhoon Doksuri from coastal and inland regions

Massive amounts of data from social media possess the potential to rapidly identify the primary issues of concern in emergency disaster management. In summer 2023, Super Typhoon Doksuri which was an exceptionally special typhoon disaster that caused severe damage to China's coastal areas and disastrous impacts in inland regions, particularly triggered the most severe rainstorm in Beijing area in over a century. To enhance typhoon hazard reduction in both coastal and interior locations, it is crucial to examine public response to these events. This study uses microblog text data from July 27 to August 3 of 2023 to map the public response to Typhoon Doksuri. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm was used to classify the microblog text in combination with the typhoon path to analyze the spatial and temporal variations of the emotions of the affected individuals. The relationship between changes in public opinion, the distribution of topics, and the major disasters triggered by the residual circulation of Typhoon Doksuri in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is discussed. The Mentougou mega-storm in Beijing area that occurred in July 2023 is a typical case. The findings demonstrate that during the typhoon event, the focus of public attention changed with the movement of the typhoon path, and various public opinion topics exhibited temporal synchronization. Public sentiment indicates that the overall supportive sentiment is higher than is fearful sentiment. Based on this, it is crucial to strengthen the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cooperative emergency response, and response measures were proposed related to urban flood control and drainage construction, public awareness, backward areas, secondary disasters, resident relocation, and social media technology.

Public opinion and the teaching profession

Negative public perception of schools nationally impacts the teaching profession in direct and indirect ways. This perception has depressed the number of students in teacher preparation programs at universities. Indirectly, public perception affects teacher working conditions, compensation, and morale. Education advocates and researchers talk about the historical roots of perception of teachers, how and why negative perceptions persist, and how teachers can change the narrative.

Opinions on the Medical and Recreational Use and Legalization of Marijuana in Mexico: Results of a National Survey

Introduction. The use of medical marijuana was legalized in Mexico in 2017. In June 2021, the Supreme Court authorized personal marijuana use, as well as its planting, cultivation, harvest, preparation, possession, and transportation for recreational purposes by persons aged 18 and over, decriminalizing its use. Objectives. 1) To determine which variables are associated with favorable opinions regarding medical use, recreational use, and the legalization of marijuana use; and 2) to determine whether there are differences in the variables that best predict support for medicinal and recreational use and legalization of marijuana among marijuana users and non-users. Method. Data are drawn from the 2016 National Survey on Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Use, administered to a nationally representative sample of Mexican households. A validated questionnaire was used with questions on demographic characteristics, marijuana use (including the number of times it has been used), respondents’ opinions regarding the legalization of marijuana and recreational use, whether they have been offered marijuana without having to pay for it, perception of risk associated with marijuana use, and excessive alcohol consumption. Results. Being male and having a low perception of the risks of marijuana use are the variables mostly strongly associated with approving medical and recreational use and its legalization, irrespective of whether respondents used it. Other variables associated with approval are age, educational attainment, and income level. Discussion and Conclusion. Legislators and policy makers should consider the full range of public opinion concerning the use and legalization of marijuana and incorporate it into their proposals.

Lacking knowledge or lacking support? An informed choice study of support for mileage fees as an alternative to gas taxes

Governing bodies are continuing to research, conduct pilot programs, and adopt policy for mileage fees as alternatives to the gas tax, yet public support remains critically low. Lack of support generally stems from assumptions that mileage fees will cost more, be inequitable for rural and low-income households, and will impede privacy through invasive mileage collection. In this study, we assess the extent to which these perceptions of mileage fees, which ultimately shape policy opinion formation, are related to low levels of information or lacking information. We also evaluate the unique aspects of policy opinion formation, including engagement with both individual and aggregate ideologies and material self-interests. Our survey instrument encourages issue engagement through iterative voting and educational experiences, through which we see information has a statistically significant effect on policy opinions and changes what we think we know about public support for mileage fees. Across the educational experiences, which include policy-relevant information provided through videos and tailored annual cost calculations for the policy alternatives, 24% of respondents changed their opinion by the end of the study, and 44% changed their opinion at least once during the study. We conclude with suggestions for public opinion polling around controversial policies that apply to both researchers and practitioners looking to engage with their constituents.

Digital Democracy in India: How Social Media Shapes Political Narratives?

Social media has significantly impacted the landscape of Indian electoral politics, transforming the dynamics of political campaigning and voter engagement. The adoption of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram in Indian political campaigns represents a fundamental shift in how political messages are crafted and disseminated. The 2014, 2019, and 2024 general elections highlight the strategic role of these platforms in shaping electoral outcomes. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has employed social media not only as a tool for broadcasting campaign messages but also for creating interactive, data-driven strategies that personalize voter engagement. This paper examines the multifaceted impact of social media on Indian politics, including its influence on voter behaviour, campaign strategies, and public opinion. It explores both the empowering aspects of digital engagement and the challenges, such as misinformation, echo chambers, and algorithmic biases. The aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of how social media has redefined political communication and its implications for democratic processes in India.

Public perspective on potential treatment intervention harm in clinical trials-terminology and communication.

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are typically designed to determine beneficial intervention effects. In addition, an important aspect of every trial is to collect data on any potential harmful effects, with the aim of ensuring that the benefit-risk balance is appropriate. The language used by trialists to describe these potential harmful effects is inconsistent. In pharmacological trials, researchers collect adverse events; when a causal relationship is suspected adverse events are further classified as adverse reactions. Academic researchers have moved to collectively refer to these as harm outcomes; the pharmaceutical industry refer to these events as safety outcomes. In trials of complex interventions, phrases such as unintended consequences or effects are used. With the inconsistent use of terminology by researchers and the potential benefits to be gained from harmonising communications, we sought public opinion on terminology used to describe harmful effects and how these outcomes are communicated in the scientific literature, as well as in public facing material on medications. We held two in-person public involvement meetings with public partners, in London and Aberdeen in 2023. Both meetings followed a pre-specified format. We provided a background to the topic including the information researchers collect on potential harms in clinical trials and shared examples on how this information gets presented in practice. We then discussed public partners' perspectives on terminology used and communication of intervention harm in academic journals and in public facing materials. A summary of these discussions and the main topics raised by public partners are presented. Public partners endorsed the use of different terms for different situations, preferring the use of 'side-effect' across all contexts and reserving the use of 'harm' to indicate more severe events. Generally, public partners were happy with the type of information presented in public facing materials but discussions revealed that presentation of information on public NHS websites led to misconceptions about harm. This work provides a starting point on preferred terminology by patients and the public to describe potential harmful intervention effects. Whilst researchers have tried to seek agreement, public partners endorsed use of different terms for different situations. We highlight some key areas for improvement in public facing materials that are necessary to avoid miscommunication and incorrect perception of harm.

Evaluating the effectiveness of developing financial culture of future economics teachers

Introduction. The article is devoted to initial teacher education for future Economics teachers with the focus on developing their financial culture, which contributes to effective interaction with society in various financial situations as well as to successful professional self-identification (increasing interest in obtaining professional knowledge, skills and abilities), and gaining experience in self-organization. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the process of developing financial culture in future Economics teachers (theoretically and experimentally). Materials and Methods. The study was conducted as part of a pedagogical experiment. Evaluating the effectiveness of developing financial culture was based on the Strategy of improving financial Literacy and the formation of financial culture until 2030, International and Russian studies commissioned by the Bank of Russia, as well as the educational experience of training future Economics teachers. The analysis and generalization of the data obtained within the experimental work were carried out. The sample consisted of 102 undergraduate students studying the field of Vocational Education (43.04.03) and majoring in Economics and Management. The validity of the results obtained is confirmed by the International PISA-2018 research and the analysis of the Institute of the Public Opinion Foundation. Results. The analysis of scholarly and educational literature enabled the authors to clarify the concept of ‘financial culture’, to determine its nature and place in society. Therefore, we specify financial culture as the most important factor in the development of national sustainability. As part of the experimental work, the authors evaluated the effectiveness of developing financial culture in future Economics teachers. The research within the framework of the formative stage of the experiment showed a positive trend in the development of students’ financial culture. It was revealed that in order to develop students’ financial culture efficiently, it is necessary to adhere to certain conditions: pay great attention to the financial module, hold events within student associations, use the entire arsenal of modern educational techniques and procedures, systematically analyze the dynamics of the development of students’ financial culture, rely on official data from research centers in Russia and other countries. Conclusions. The results of the study prove that educational conditions justified and implemented in pedagogical universities ensure the effectiveness of developing financial literacy in future Economics teachers. The authors conclude that the development of financial culture can be considered to be the most important condition for students’ successful professional development.

Sentiment Analysis of Sirekap Tweets Using CNN Algorithm

Background: The research investigates the application of deep learning models for sentiment analysis on Twitter data related to Indonesia's Sirekap system. Sentiment analysis is crucial for understanding public opinion and enhancing the transparency and reliability of election result recapitulation processes. Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the performance of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and CNN-LSTM models in analyzing sentiments from tweets about the Sirekap system. The study aims to identify the most effective model and preprocessing techniques to improve sentiment classification accuracy. Methods: A comprehensive data preprocessing pipeline was implemented, including cleansing, case folding, tokenizing, normalization, stopword removal, and stemming. To address class imbalance, the SMOTE technique was applied. The models were trained and evaluated using accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score metrics. Pre-trained word embeddings were used to enhance model performance. Results: The CNN model achieved an accuracy of 85.90%, outperforming the CNN-LSTM model, which achieved 79.91% accuracy. Additionally, the CNN model demonstrated superior precision, recall, and F1-score metrics compared to the CNN-LSTM model. The thorough preprocessing and handling of class imbalance significantly contributed to the enhanced performance of the CNN model. Conclusion: The research emphasizes the effectiveness of deep learning approaches, particularly CNNs, in sentiment analysis tasks. The findings highlight the importance of comprehensive preprocessing and class imbalance handling. The use of pre-trained word embeddings and various evaluation metrics ensures robust model performance. These insights contribute to improving the accuracy and efficiency of sentiment classification, thereby enhancing the reliability and transparency of election result recapitulation processes.

Public opinion towards interest groups: The differential impact of ties to cause and business groups

AbstractInterest groups are often included as key actors in consultation processes, with the aim of making policy more effective, fair and representative. At the same time, their influence is frequently viewed with suspicion. This research note uses survey experiments in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States (N = 9,357) to explore how the ties citizens hold to different types of interest groups affect their perceived legitimacy of involving them in parliamentary hearings. We find that affective, behavioural and attitudinal ties shape how citizens evaluate the representation of groups, but that there are important differences between ties to different group types: ties to cause groups representing societal interests are more consequential than ties to business interests. These findings underline important heterogeneity in how different interest groups relate to their constituencies and have implications for accountability relationships between citizens and policymakers. The heightened sensitivity of citizens with ties to cause groups regarding their representation underscores the need to actively nurture and involve these groups in policy making.

Euphemism as a powerful framing device that influences moral judgments and punitive responses after wrongdoing.

Euphemism-that is, softening words or phrases substituted for more direct language-has become pervasive in our everyday personal and professional lives. Leveraging theory and research on construal and framing effects, we conceptualize euphemism as a linguistic framing device that influences how observers construe situations and the people, groups, objects, and events within them. We then experimentally investigate the effects of euphemism as a linguistic framing device on third-party judgments about moral transgressions (i.e., bribery, fraud). Across studies (total N = 3,081) we find consistent evidence that employing euphemistic labels (relative to their noneuphemistic analogs) reduces the perceived severity of moral transgressions and, as a result, also reduces third-party motivations to punish transgressors. Overt experimental manipulations to reconstrue euphemistic labels into their noneuphemistic forms reduced, but did not entirely eliminate, the effects on moral severity and punishment judgments. Participants did not sufficiently adjust their judgments. These findings underscore the power of simple linguistic manipulations in influencing public opinion, and they have important implications for the possibility of creating a more just and fair society. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Not our kind of crowd! How partisan bias distorts perceptions of political bots on Twitter (now X).

Social bots, employed to manipulate public opinion, pose a novel threat to digital societies. Existing bot research has emphasized technological aspects while neglecting psychological factors shaping human-bot interactions. This research addresses this gap within the context of the US-American electorate. Two datasets provide evidence that partisanship distorts (a) online users' representation of bots, (b) their ability to identify them, and (c) their intentions to interact with them. Study 1 explores global bot perceptions on through survey data from N = 452 Twitter (now X) users. Results suggest that users tend to attribute bot-related dangers to political adversaries, rather than recognizing bots as a shared threat to political discourse. Study 2 (N = 619) evaluates the consequences of such misrepresentations for the quality of online interactions. In an online experiment, participants were asked to differentiate between human and bot profiles. Results indicate that partisan leanings explained systematic judgement errors. The same data suggest that participants aim to avoid interacting with bots. However, biased judgements may undermine this motivation in praxis. In sum, the presented findings underscore the importance of interdisciplinary strategies that consider technological and human factors to address the threats posed by bots in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

A New Stochastic Petri Net Modeling Approach for the Evolution of Online Public Opinion on Emergencies: Based on Four Real-Life Cases

A New Stochastic Petri Net Modeling Approach for the Evolution of Online Public Opinion on Emergencies: Based on Four Real-Life Cases

Is there a rural-urban political divide in Britain?

ABSTRACT A rural-urban political divide, characterized by rural mistrust in politics, dissatisfaction with democracy, and support for authoritarian-populist leaders and parties, has been identified in many Western democracies. Yet there has been little investigation of the extent to which British public opinion is divided in this fashion. Using British Election Study data from 2016 and 2019 that combines large samples with finely-grained geographic identifiers, this paper investigates the possible presence and extent of a rural-urban divide in British political attitudes and values. We find that while rural Britons are more conservative on economic issues, and more supportive of the Conservative party than urbanites, the two groups have comparable levels of democratic satisfaction, political trust, and authoritarianism. As such, unlike in other Western democracies, we do not find any evidence that rural Britons are more resentful, dissatisfied, or “left-behind” compared to their urban counterparts.

Political and ideological background of LSSR KGB activity against antisoviet powers in 1954-1990

Communist ideology not only legitimized the Soviet totalitarian regime but also influenced and defined the basis and direction of KGB activity and legitimized its repressive policy. Inner and international policy targets of the Communist Party were also important to KGB activity, influencing its operational activity and its methods. The Communist Party was also an important player in forming the repression policy that was implemented by the KGB. Also, the Communist Party obliged the KGB to undertake ideological and political education functions. After 1954, inner and international situations of the Soviet Union changed, and this changed the positions of the KGB and its priorities, activities, methods; however, the main targets almost hadn’t changed. Now the KGB paid more attention to the prevention of anti-Soviet activity rather than to physical repression. To implement this task, the KGB used prophylaxis, psychological pressure, and formation of public opinion through the media, as well as ideological and political education of society. Communist ideology had a great influence on KGB operational activity, its understanding, and evaluations of anti-Soviet activity. It was evaluated as class struggle that was initiated by the West, especially by the USA. That is why the KGB paid more attention to specific groups of society such as youth, intelligentsia, former political prisoners and deportees, and tried to control all connections with the West.

Performance and biases of Large Language Models in public opinion simulation

Performance and biases of Large Language Models in public opinion simulation

Exploration of Response Strategies for Network Public Opinion Crisis Events in Vocational Colleges Based on the 4R Crisis Management Theory

Exploration of Response Strategies for Network Public Opinion Crisis Events in Vocational Colleges Based on the 4R Crisis Management Theory

Parties influence public opinion far beyond their partisans: evidence from two quasi-experiments

ABSTRACT Are parties able to influence public opinion beyond their supporters? Much of the literature on parties and public opinion finds that parties exercise considerable sway over their own partisans. However, I argue that parties in multi-party systems have broader influence – namely, they can persuade the partisans of their ally parties (“ally partisans”). Thus, I extend a key study in the field by performing difference-in-differences analyses on two rare instances in which some Danish parties shifted their policies on salient issues (unemployment benefits and early retirement), while other parties did not. However, unlike previous research, I test the influence on ally partisans. In addition, I analyse the difference-in-differences for the original partisans while omitting ally partisans from the control groups. My study also examines two potential control groups – partisans of opposing parties and nonpartisans – and concludes that the former group is more appropriate as a control. The findings demonstrate that parties influence (1) their ally partisans considerably, (2) their own partisans to a greater extent than found in past estimates, and (3) possibly even nonpartisans. This indicates that parties exercise broader and more powerful influence over public opinion than previously expected.

Ethical Aspects of Content Creation

In the digital age, technology is integral to daily life, significantly impacting areas such as art, entertainment, healthcare and education. This paper explores the ethical aspects of digital content creation, focusing on the responsibilities of creators in shaping public opinion and behaviour. Key issues addressed include misinformation, digital harassment, privacy breaches, and the commercialisation of personal experiences. By reviewing existing literature and emphasising the importance of ethical digital practices, this study aims to contribute to a more responsible and ethical digital landscape. The main research question investigates whether ethical principles should guide digital content creation and dissemination.