Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: The fragmented state of opinion research
- 2 Information, predispositions, and opinion
- 3 How citizens acquire information and convert it into public opinion
- 4 Coming to terms with response instability
- 5 Making it up as you go along
- 6 The mainstream and polarization effects
- 7 Basic processes of “attitude change”
- 8 Tests of the one-message model
- 9 Two-sided information flows
- 10 Information flow and electoral choice
- 11 Evaluating the model and looking toward future research
- 12 Epilogue: The question of elite domination of public opinion
- Measures appendix
- References
- Index
12 - Epilogue: The question of elite domination of public opinion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: The fragmented state of opinion research
- 2 Information, predispositions, and opinion
- 3 How citizens acquire information and convert it into public opinion
- 4 Coming to terms with response instability
- 5 Making it up as you go along
- 6 The mainstream and polarization effects
- 7 Basic processes of “attitude change”
- 8 Tests of the one-message model
- 9 Two-sided information flows
- 10 Information flow and electoral choice
- 11 Evaluating the model and looking toward future research
- 12 Epilogue: The question of elite domination of public opinion
- Measures appendix
- References
- Index
Summary
The voice of the people is but an echo. The output of an echo chamber bears an inevitable and invariable relation to the input. As candidates and parties clamor for attention and vie for popular support, the people's verdict can be no more than a selective reflection from the alternatives and outlooks presented to them (p. 2).
–V. O. Key, Jr., The Responsible ElectorateIn the 1930s and 1940s, many observers feared that the rise of the modern mass media would bring a new era of totalitarian domination. Mass circulation newspapers, the newly invented radio, and motion pictures seemed ideal tools for playing upon the fears of the new mass societies, and the great though temporary success of Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, and Stalin in the Soviet Union seemed to confirm everyone's worst fears.
George Orwell's famous novel 1984 is perhaps the best-known expression of this foreboding over the dark potential of the mass media, but many social scientists shared Orwell's apprehension. As a result, attempts to measure the effects of the mass media on public opinion were a staple of early opinion research.
This early research turned out to be reassuring, however. Compared to what many feared the media might be able to accomplish, surveys found media effects to be relatively small (Klapper, 1960).
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- Information
- The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion , pp. 310 - 332Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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