Constructing Public Opinion: How Political Elites Do What They Like and Why We Seem to Go Along with It / Edition 1

by Justin Lewis

Overview

Is polling a process that brings "science" into the study of society? Or are polls crude instruments that tell us little about the way people actually think? The role of public opinion polls in government and mass media has gained increasing importance with each new election or poll taken.

Here Lewis presents a new look at an old tradition, the first study of opinion polls using an interdisciplinary approach combining cultural studies, sociology, political science, and mass communication. Rather than dismissing polls, he considers them to be a significant form of representation in contemporary culture; he explores how the media report on polls and, in turn, how publicized results influence the way people respond to polls. Lewis argues that the media tend to exclude the more progressive side of popular opinion from public debate. While the media's influence is limited, it works strategically to maintain the power of pro-corporate political elites.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231117678
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	03/07/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Justin Lewis is professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part One: The Representation of Public Opinion
1. Why Numbers Matter and Why We Should Be Suspicious of Them
2. Who's In and Who's Out: Public Opinion as a Cultural Form
3. Suppressing Dissent: The Media Representation of Public Opinion
Part Two: The Formation of Public Opinion
4. Getting the Right Response? Media Influence on Public Opinion
5. What Are Opinions and Where Do They Come From?
6. The Ideology of Assumptions
7. Flickering the Embers of Consent: Public Opinion and the Military Industrial Complex
8. Selling Unrepresentative Democracy
Conclusion: Hegemony and Its Discontents
Appendix

Editorial Reviews

Very well written and shows that cultural studies and quantitative data are not necessarily incompatible.

International Journal of Public Opinion Research

Though Lewis (communication, U. of Massachusetts, Amherst) writes that he sees opinion polls as "like the faces plastered on the sides of billboards<-->obvious and yet enigmatic, loud without depth," he also confesses that he has always been an ardent consumer of them. His study attempts to understand what polls are in a social and cultural sense, what they signify about ideology, and how they might be used to question the ideologies of political and economic elites rather than validate them. The book's first section deals with how public opinion is constructed, through the technology of polling and by the news media that report and interpret surveys. Its second section examines the roles played by the media and political elites in shaping public opinion as signified through polls. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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