POL SC 1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Call Screening, Quota Sampling, Economic Liberalism
21 Jan 2018
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6 public opinion, political socialization and the media. In a democracy, the people express their opinions in many di erent ways. One way is through public opinion polls, which are reported almost daily in the media. Public opinion has an impact on presidents and their decisions; however, the extent to which it a ects policymaking in general is not always clear: defining public opinion. Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs shared by some portion of adults. Private opinion becomes public opinion when an individual takes some type of action to express an opinion to others publicly. We can look to the distribution of public opinion to determine how divided the public is on any given issue. When there is general agreement on an issue, there is said to be a consensus. When opinions are sharply divided, there is divisive opinion.
