Public Opinion & Mass Media

February 23rd, 2015

Warm Up

Describe how political parties help candidates get elected.

















Learning Objective: Students will understand what public opinion is.

Success Criteria: Students can explain how public opinion is formed and how it is used in our system.

Public Opinion

Public Opinion: How people feel about specific issues or people.

I. What creates it?

1. personal background: your life experiences
2. mass media: what you hear, read, see on tv/radio/internet/books/newspapers, etc.
3. public officials: what political leaders, or leaders in the community say
4. public interest groups:groups that intentionally try to change the way we think about things

II. Why is it useful?

• who do politicians work for? how do they know what we want them to do?

What does this tell us about likelihood of politicians supporting legalization in the future?

What do they poll?

Everything.

III. What do politicians want to know about it?

• 3 features of public opinion

1. direction: do people like/agree with it or dislike/disagree with it
• if you like it politicians are more likely to do it. why?
2. intensity: how strongly do people feel about it
• why would they want to know how strongly people feel?
3. stability: how likely people are to change their minds
• why would politicians want to know how likely you are to change your feelings?

IV. What is mass media?

• any method that allows communication with a lot of people at once

V. How much influence does it have?