Public Opinion Research Articles

Opinion Change or Differential Turnout: Changing Opinions on the Austin Police Department in a Budget Feedback Process

In 2020 the tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement ignited and intensified nationwide protests, demanding changes in police funding and allocation. This happened during a budgeting feedback exercise where residents of Austin, Texas were invited to share opinions on the budgets of various city service areas, including the Police Department, on an online platform designed by our team. Daily responses increased by a hundredfold and responses registered after the “exogenous shock” overwhelmingly advocated for reducing police funding. This opinion shift far exceeded what we observed in 14 other Participatory Budgeting elections on our Participatory Budgeting Platform, and can’t be explained by shifts in the respondent demographics. Analysis of the results from an Austin budgetary feedback exercise in 2021 and a follow-up survey indicates that the opinion shift from 2020 persisted, with the opinion gap on police funding widening. We conclude that there was an actual change of opinion regarding police funding. This study not only sheds light on the enduring impact of the 2020 events and protests on public opinion, but also showcases the value of analysis of clustered opinions as a tool in the evaluation toolkit of survey organizers.

Democratic Erosion, Partisanship, and Election Observers: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

To what extent do voters support election observation missions (EOMs) monitoring their elections? Building on but departing from prior work, we argue that citizens’ support for election observation missions likely depends on their partisanship. To test our argument, we conduct a survey experiment with a national sample of about 3, 500 Americans in the run-up to the 2020 United States presidential election. Respondents read an adapted news article about the deployment of common interventions in the upcoming election. To test our theoretical expectations, we randomize the partisan source endorsing the interventions. We find that respondents who self-identify as Democrats and Independents/Others are much less likely to support election observers when endorsed by Trump. In addition, Democrats are more likely to support election observers if they read that Biden approves of them. In contrast, Republicans are less likely to support an intervention if they read the same. Our results contribute to ongoing debates about how to promote and defend free elections in backsliding or democratizing countries and, more generally, to the literatures on election observation and public opinion.

Constraining Constitution-Making

Whether constitution-making should be constrained has long been debated, but little is known about whether it is possible. We make several contributions to this question. We start by providing a typology of three types of constraints on constitution-making: Substantive, Procedural, and Institutional. We next develop a positive theory of when these constraints are likely to influence drafters’ behavior. We then use a mixed-methods approach to explore these ideas in the context of Chile’s constitutional reform process. In a survey experiment conducted in Chile before citizens voted on the draft constitution, we find that most respondents supported constraints in the abstract, but that they also supported a popular policy initiative—nationalizing mines—that violated these same constraints. This suggests that popular opinion may not enforce constraints on constitution-making. However, in fieldwork conducted in Chile, we found evidence that Chilean political parties did rein in constitution-makers who wanted to ignore constraints. This suggests that constitution-making constraints may be more likely to be effective when enforced by political parties.

Analysis of green deal communication on twitter: environmental and political perspective

The Green Deal and its implementation are generating discussions across society. Changes brought about by the agreement could impact sustainable development worldwide; therefore, identifying the most common Green Deal-related topics on a global scale can offer insight into the public mood around implementation of the agreement. Social networks provide the opportunity to find such topics because they contain a large amount of data produced by users worldwide: analysis of their content can therefore provide insight into the discourse on the Green Deal and identify the sentiment in discussions around this topic. In this article, we present perceptions of the Green Deal and identify the main Green Deal-related topics based on analysis of communication on the Twitter social network (currently X social network). Using the search terms “green deal,” “greendeal,” and “#greendeal,” 192,567 tweets from 89,328 unique users were captured between 1 January 2019 and 31 March 2023. We identified the 40 most used unique hashtags that people used when communicating about the Green Deal, which included “#EU,” “#eugreendeal,” and “#climatechange,” and the 16 most relevant topics discussed in relation to the Green Deal, which included both European (“European Green Deal”) and North American (“Green New Deal”) perspectives. Each topic was associated with a certain amount of negative, positive, or neutral sentiment: the most positive sentiment was associated with the “Industrial plan” and “Hydrogen” topics, and the most negative sentiment was associated with topics relating to “Joe Biden” and “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” Overall, our analysis of the discourse regarding the Green Deal offers organizations and decision-makers insight into how people perceive different aspects of the Green Deal and related topics. This may be beneficial in tackling disinformation across social networks and increasing public awareness, which could create a society better equipped to face the global concern of climate change.

Exploring Transition Tensions in Public Opinion on the COP26 Coal Phase-out Deal for South Africa as Expressed on Facebook

ABSTRACT The 2021 COP26 meeting presented South Africa with an $8.5 billion deal to reduce its heavy reliance on coal, sparking a renewed public debate about transforming the country's coal-fired energy system to address emissions, energy deficits, and declining services. This paper examines public opinion on this important energy transition initiative as expressed on social media. While the use of social media platforms for public deliberation on policy matters is increasing in Africa, research exploring the African social media landscape in the context of energy transition is limited. This paper addresses this gap by qualitatively analysing 3,980 Facebook comments on 31 news posts related to the COP26 deal using sentiment and thematic approaches in ATLAS.ti 22. The findings reveal a prevalent negative sentiment and delegitimizing opinions that challenge the deal's credibility. Prominent topics within the discourse encompass concerns about corruption, distrust in public institutions, and perceptions of foreign involvement. Although some motivating factors supporting the deal emerged, negative sentiments and viewpoints dominated the discourse. Studying symbolic practices related to energy visions in this underexplored Global South context yields valuable insights into public opinions on energy transitions, highlighting the link between governance institutions and societal attitudes toward energy transition.

The effect of different extreme weather events on attitudes toward climate change.

Can exposure to extreme weather change political opinion and preferences about climate change? There is a growing literature on both the effects of extreme weather events and the factors explaining attitudes toward global warming, though there remains no clear consensus about whether being exposed to extreme weather influences public opinion about climate change. We contribute to this literature by studying the impact of a variety of extreme weather events associated with climate variability, including severe storms, floods, fires, and hurricanes, on attitudes toward climate change. Specifically, we use a three-wave panel survey and a dynamic difference-in-differences design to analyze public opinion data at the individual level in the US. We find that exposure to only one extreme weather type-fires-has a small but significant effect on acknowledging the existence of climate change and supporting the need for action. However, that impact quickly vanishes, and other types of extreme weather do not appear to have any effect on opinion.

Declining Chinese attitudes toward the United States amid COVID-19

In this paper, we present findings from four separate studies using different data sources and methods to examine Chinese attitudes toward the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical results consistently indicate a marked and significant decline in Chinese attitudes toward the US between late 2019 and the end of 2022. Using a quasi-experimental design and granular survey data that exploit daily variations in public opinion, we offer additional evidence that the decline in Chinese attitudes toward the United States followed a distinct pattern not true for Chinese attitudes toward other countries. Specifically, the rise in Chinese unfavorability toward the United States closely corresponded to the heightened Chinese attention to the pandemic's progression in the United States. These results collectively suggest a causal effect of COVID-19, shedding light on how public health crises, international relations, and media jointly shape the increasing enmity between the two great powers.

Decolonisation: meaning, sentiments and implications for heritage

ABSTRACT Within the printed and online newspaper media in the UK, notions of ‘decolonisation’ referring to various contexts, such as historical, relating to museums and institutions, cultural decolonisation and in relation to modern independence discussions, can be traced. In this article, we have applied topic modelling and natural language processing methods to carry out a classification of, and sentiment analysis on, newspaper headlines and texts from leading British newspapers covering decolonisation over the past decade. The results show an abrupt change in the meaning of decolonisation starting in the middle of the 2010s with an increased focus on cultural and institutional matters, particularly in right-leaning media. Surprisingly, the editorial slant of broadsheets seemingly only had at best moderate effects on tone, while headlines in right-wing tabloids were significantly more negative. Articles covering cultural aspects of decolonisation were substantially more negative than those applying a more traditional, territorial definition of decolonisation. Given the influence of newspaper media on public and private opinions, we discuss the heritage implications of these findings and suggest avenues for further investigation.

Linguistic activity of Shahtakhtli during the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic

The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries are considered a period of revival of national awakening, self-awareness and the emergence of ideas of independence in the aesthetic and public opinion of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic occupies a special place in the history of state independence of our people. In the Republic of Azerbaijan, special importance is attached to the literary language. Azerbaijani linguistics has an ancient history. Studying the history of this linguistics, determining the role and place of outstanding linguists, enlightened intellectuals who played an important role in its development, is of great importance in terms of writing a complete history of the linguistic thought of our scientific linguistics. The Azerbaijani people, with a rich history and enormous scientific heritage, have produced outstanding public figures. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, one of the greatest linguists of Azerbaijan, who rose to the level of European standards, was the great public figure Muhammad Agha Shakhtakhtli. The prominent prose writer M. Shakhtakhtli tried to implement the ideas of education by publishing journalistic articles in the Russian-language press of the Caucasus, raised with government authorities the importance of educating the people through the media, and preached the need to reform the alphabet. . Studying and working in Europe, in the capital of France, Paris, M. Shakhtakhtli grew up as an outstanding linguist and published numerous articles in the European press about Eastern culture, the development of Azerbaijani education, and the reform of the Arabic alphabet.

Neutral news from in- and out-party media and attitudes toward them: integration of expectancy violations theory and hostile media perceptions

ABSTRACT The contemporary U.S. media environment is characterized by a strong partisan divide. Both Democrats and Republicans express strong distrust in oppositional media and accuse them of showing partisan bias. Clearly, this public opinion climate is not helpful to a healthy democracy. Unlike the common wisdom, these news outlets do provide neutral political coverage. Based on propositions from expectancy violation theory and hostile media perceptions, we test the effects of exposure to neutral news from an out-party outlet on violation interpretation and attitudes toward oppositional media. An online experiment (N = 610) shows that exposure to neutral news from an out-party outlet leads to violation unexpectedness and valence for Democrats and violation valence for Republicans. We also find an indirect positive effect of exposure to neutral news on attitudes toward an out-party outlet through violation valence for Democrats and Republicans. Unlike what can be expected of hostile media perceptions, these effects are more noticeable for stronger partisans. Our study also reveals different patterns of partisan reactions to neutral news from in-party outlets. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Generalized trust and attitudes toward immigrants in East Asia: A cross-national comparative study

Generalized trust has been widely discussed as a non-economic determinant influencing public attitudes toward immigrants among natives in Europe. However, associations between generalized trust and public opinions on immigrants remain underexplored in East Asia. This study investigates the association between generalized trust among natives and their attitudes toward immigrants, considering the interaction between generalized trust and country. Utilizing data from the 7th wave of the World Values Survey dataset for three East Asian countries—South Korea, China, and Japan—we fitted two mixed multilevel logistic regression models for two dependent variables in two scenarios: opposition to immigrants as neighbors, and prioritizing nationals in economic adversity. Results reveal that generalized trust was negatively related to natives' reluctance to accept immigrants as neighbors. However, the association was only marginally significant when examining support for in-group favoritism in economic adversity. The impact of generalized trust on these attitudes also exhibited variations by country. Notably, we found a negative association between generalized trust and opposing immigrants as neighbors in China and Japan, while this may not be the case for Korea.

The Role of Think Tanks in the Foreign Affairs Work of the Taiwan Authorities

“Public diplomacy” in Taiwan is led by the Taiwan authorities and joined by multiple actors. Due to the Taiwan authorities’ limited international engagement, they seek assistance from think tanks in expanding “public diplomacy”, as a complement to their “diplomatic” efforts or as a substitute when their intervention is deemed inappropriate. In this case, think tanks assume an active “diplomatic role”. Their main functions are to provide policy advice and decision-making counsel to the Taiwan authorities; cooperate with the Taiwan authorities in “Track II diplomacy”; disseminate Taiwan’s values and build a network of cooperative relations. Their fundamental purpose is to enhance Taiwan’s international influence through exchanges and dialogues, to tilt the international public opinion towards Taiwan, and ultimately to build a network of “diplomatic” relations.

Between Open Deliberation and the Capturing of Public Opinion: Producing Opinions in Public Engagement

Between Open Deliberation and the Capturing of Public Opinion: Producing Opinions in Public Engagement

Deceptive Content Detection Using Machine Learning

Deceptive Content Detection Using Machine Learning

Framing and prosecutorial discretion: evidence from Brazil

Abstract Prior studies in the United States argue that the discretionary decisions of federal prosecutors regarding which issues to prioritize are shaped by the politicians who appoint them, while studies on state prosecutors emphasize the role of press coverage and public opinion. However, these studies leave untheorized whether prosecutors’ discretionary decisions are also affected by how their peers frame issues within and beyond prosecution offices. Building on the scholarship of collective action frames, this study develops a framework to explain how prosecutors’ framing work affects their colleagues’ decisions about which issues to focus on. I draw on the case of Brazil, where federal prosecutors focused on crime-fighting and human rights, but in the mid-2010s switched focus to corruption following a large-scale investigation called Lava Jato. I compare Lava Jato with two similarly large investigations that failed to transform corruption into the dominant issue within the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Drawing on 131 original interviews, I show how federal prosecutors’ framing work can persuade their colleagues to focus on the same issue through two stages: (1) conceptualization of versatile frames that speak to problems a variety of issues prosecutors care about and (2) diffusion of frames through professional meetings – providing roadmaps for how other prosecutors can implement the new frame – and to the press, increasing public attention.

Economic Hardship and Welfare Policy Preferences: What Can the COVID-19 Pandemic Tell Us?

We explore how individual perceptions of the nature of economic hardships correlate with preferences over different types of welfare state responses (i.e. universal or means-tested, temporary or permanent, cash transfers and medical services) in a U.S. survey. We utilize differing public opinion about the length of the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic disruptions and whether it causes nationwide economic instability or unevenly affects the population. Respondents who view the pandemic’s economic hardship as temporary should be less likely to support permanent welfare policies and, due to costs, those who view the pandemic as having targeted effects should be less likely to support universal programs. Unexpectedly, our findings indicate that if Americans believe the effects are temporary, they are less supportive of any new program. If Americans believe that the pandemic’s effects are targeted, they are, as expected, less supportive of universal programs, but are also less likely to support doing nothing, indicating that equity concerns may influence preferences. Patterns of support are very similar for services and transfers.

Influence of Severity and Susceptibility Information Content on Users’ Psychological Response in Emergencies—The Moderating Effect of Regulatory Focus

Information content is crucial for public opinion governance, yet its psychological mechanisms remain unclear. This paper endeavors to bridge this knowledge gap by examining the influence of information content on users’ psychological responses. Drawing insights from the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) and regulatory focus theory, we constructed a novel cognitive and emotional response model. Regression analysis reveals that susceptibility strongly influences primary cognitive responses, while severity affects secondary ones. Susceptibility has a stronger impact on emotional responses than severity. Promotion-focus users are less influenced by severity and susceptibility than prevention-focus users. These results offer valuable insights for emergency management strategies and enhance individuals’ resilience in coping with the psychological toll of emergencies.

The Influence of Pre-school Literacy Preparation Studies on Primary School Literacy Instruction

The aim of this study is to determine the impact of literacy preparation activities conducted during the pre-school period on primary school literacy instruction from the perspective of classroom teachers. The design of the study was determined as a case study, which is one of the qualitative research types. The research group was determined through purposive sampling. In order to ensure maximum diversity, interviews were conducted with a total of 14 teachers, consisting of one male and one female from each of Türkiye seven regions. Considering the aim of the study, it was taken into account that teachers should have experience in literacy instruction. Therefore, teachers who had conducted teaching activities in first grade elementary school classrooms for at least three times were included in the study. A semi-structured interview form was used as the data collection tool in the research. The interviews were analyzed using a data analysis software. As a result of the analyses, 4 themes, 13 categories, and 58 codes were identified. According to the findings of the study, the teachers believe that literacy preparation activities conducted during the pre-school period have a positive impact on primary school. It is also among the general opinions of those teachers that literacy preparation activities are more effective and functional in pre-school compared to previous years. The classroom teachers expressed that pre-school teachers should not deviate from the curriculum, and teaching literacy in pre-school may lead to some difficulties in primary school. Finally, the classroom teachers believe that beyond academic skills, imparting social adjustment and self-regulation skills to children during pre-school is more crucial for readiness in primary school.

UNDERSTANDING DEEPFAKE TECHNOLOGY: IMPLICATIONS, CHALLENGES AND CASE STUDIES

The rise in deepfake technology has sparked serious worries about how it may distort the facts, sway public opinion, and jeopardise personal privacy. This study explores the complex world of deepfakes, looking at its technological underpinnings, social effects, and moral ramifications. This study investigates the diverse uses of deepfake technology, spanning from political misinformation operations to entertainment, through an analysis of academic literature and case studies. Moreover, it explores the difficulties that deepfakes provide for media legitimacy, dependability, and the accuracy of visual proof. This research delves into the legal and regulatory frameworks pertaining to deepfakes and suggests some approaches to alleviate their adverse effects. Finally, by fostering a thorough knowledge of deepfakes, our research hopes to enable people, decision-makers, and technology developers to properly navigate this quickly changing digital terrain.

The right to freedom of speech: theoretical and legal aspect

The article defines the right to freedom as a vital role in the existence of humanity, as it allows citizens to take an active part in the country's political life and shape public opinion. The author notes that the right to freedom of speech has ancient historical origins. Documents were analyzed in which the principle of freedom of speech was declared, in particular the Great Charter of Freedoms (1215), Bill of Rights (1689), Declaration of Independence (1776), Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789), Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and other acts. It is emphasized that these documents became the basis for developing the right to freedom of speech in modern democratic countries and provided an opportunity to freely express one's opinions without being persecuted by the authorities. The article pays special attention to domestic regulation of the right to freedom of speech. The author notes that freedom of speech is one of the critical components of human and citizen rights in many legal systems. The theoretical aspect of this issue includes the analysis of different approaches and concepts to understanding the essence and scope of this subjective legal right. Philosophical foundations and legal methods for understanding "freedom of speech” are described. It was determined that the right to freedom of speech is not absolute and may be limited. The work lists the circumstances under which the outlined right may be limited. The author emphasizes that possible restrictions must be legal, necessary in a democratic society, and comply with the principle of proportionality. The article summarizes that freedom of speech is historically an essential human right, which forms the basis of the legal status of an individual. Without it, the functioning of a democratic state is impossible at all. But at the same time, it should be taken into account that freedom of speech is not only a right but also a responsibility that rests on those who use this right. Ensuring its adequate protection requires a combination of international standards, national legislation, and constant adaptation to modern realities.