Public Approval, Policy Issues, and Partisanship in the American Presidency: Examining the 2019–2020 Trump Impeachment and Acquittal

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Meena Bose ◽  
Craig M. Burnett
Keyword(s):  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
American Presidency ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civic Knowledge ◽  
Quasi Experiment

ABSTRACT Although much of the United States undoubtedly was aware of the impeachment hearings and trial for President Donald Trump in 2019–2020, the extent to which information about those events influenced the public remains unknown. Building on scholarship about public opinion and democratic governance, we attempted to fill this knowledge gap through a unique survey. We asked half of our sample to answer three factual questions pertaining to Trump’s first impeachment trial. We ran a quasi-experiment on the other half, trying to influence their view of the trial by informing them of the same three facts that we asked the first group. The quasi-experiment demonstrates that support for acquittal was largely static and that partisanship strongly influences whether the public accepts the veracity and importance of political information. Consequently, civic knowledge today appears to have a limited—perhaps even nonexistent—effect on public attitudes about American politics.

The Propaganda Feedback Loop

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Feedback Loop ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The Public ◽  
False Reporting ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
Crowd Out ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter presents a model of the interaction of media outlets, politicians, and the public with an emphasis on the tension between truth-seeking and narratives that confirm partisan identities. This model is used to describe the emergence and mechanics of an insular media ecosystem and how two fundamentally different media ecosystems can coexist. In one, false narratives that reinforce partisan identity not only flourish, but crowd-out true narratives even when these are presented by leading insiders. In the other, false narratives are tested, confronted, and contained by diverse outlets and actors operating in a truth-oriented norms dynamic. Two case studies are analyzed: the first focuses on false reporting on a selection of television networks; the second looks at parallel but politically divergent false rumors—an allegation that Donald Trump raped a 13-yearold and allegations tying Hillary Clinton to pedophilia—and tracks the amplification and resistance these stories faced.

Revealing public opinion towards COVID-19 vaccines with Twitter data in the United States: a spatiotemporal perspective (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Hu ◽  
Siqin Wang ◽  
Wei Luo ◽  
Mengxi Zhang ◽  
Xiao Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Spatiotemporal Trends ◽  
The Us ◽  
Key Events

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the US and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines by investigating the spatiotemporal trends of their sentiment and emotion towards vaccines, as well as how such trends relate to popular topics on Twitter in the US METHODS We collected over 300,000 geotagged tweets in the US from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021. We examined the spatiotemporal patterns of public sentiment and emotion over time at both national and state scales and identified three phases along the pandemic timeline with the significant changes of public sentiment and emotion, further linking to eleven key events and major topics as the potential drivers to induce such changes via cloud mapping of keywords and topic modelling RESULTS An increasing trend of positive sentiment in parallel with the decrease of negative sentiment are generally observed in most states, reflecting the rising confidence and anticipation of the public towards vaccines. The overall tendency of the eight types of emotion implies the trustiness and anticipation of the public to vaccination, accompanied by the mixture of fear, sadness and anger. Critical social/international events and/or the announcements of political leaders and authorities may have potential impacts on the public opinion on vaccines. These factors, along with important topics and manual reading of popular posts on eleven key events, help identify underlying themes and validate insights from the analysis CONCLUSIONS The analyses of near real-time social media big data benefit public health authorities by enabling them to monitor public attitudes and opinions towards vaccine-related information in a geo-aware manner, address the concerns of vaccine skeptics and promote the confidence of individuals within a certain region or community, towards vaccines

Ichiro the Public Diplomat: Professional Sport as Cultural Intermediary in Configuring US-Japan Relations

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-104
Author(s):  
Derek Moscato
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Baseball ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Global Engagement ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Survey Responses

Summary This study examines the confluence of sport and soft power within public diplomacy. It analyses professional baseball player Ichiro Suzuki’s role in the United States as a sporting ambassador from Japan — potentially catalysing goodwill, cultural interest, perceptions of national personality traits and even views of policy issues such as international trade and country relations. In doing so, this research draws from non-state public diplomacy, which considers the transnational impacts of non-traditional communication vehicles such as cultural and sporting exchanges. It measures US public sentiment towards Japan through quantitative analysis of survey responses collected by Pew Research Center in conjunction with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. The success of Japan’s cultural and sporting exports highlights their potential and realised role in binding national ties. Furthermore, Tokyo’s hosting of the Summer Olympiad emphasises the role of sport not only as a vehicle for competition and entertainment but also its utility in global engagement.

scholarly journals Faulkner’s Quixotic Picaresque: Carnival, Tricksters, and Rhizomatic Intertextuality in The Reivers

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 270-280
Author(s):  
David E. S. Beek
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Lazarillo De Tormes ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Agrarian Society ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Public Body

Abstract Faulkner’s The Reivers exemplifies the Quixotic Picaresque-a conflation of the narrative modes exhibited in Lazarillo de Tormes and Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote. This essay explores the correlation between Spain’s transition from feudalism to a modern mercantile society and the United States’ transition from an agrarian society based on slavery to a modern industrial nation within the cultural contexts of these novels. In each of these works, a series of trickster figures undertake performative acts of deception, particularly the masking tradition of Carnival, in order to endure the hardships of modernity. However, whereas most tricksters tend to be solely focused on pragmatic individual objectives, quixotic pícaros maintain a sense of idealism that leads them to consider the Other and thus act in the name of communal prosperity. These selfless tricksters meta-theatrically parody the generic social conventions in which they reside in order to subvert the hegemony that seeks to oppress and marginalise them and fellow members of their communities. In performing an array of identities and social roles, these quixotic pícaros contribute to the opacity of modern multicultural nation-states, and thus, disrupt all social hierarchies leading to the regeneration of the public body, mobility, and a more utopian world.

Beliefs and Stereotypes About LGBT People

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary R. Hicks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Lgbt People ◽  
Lgbt Individuals

The public’s perception of, beliefs about, and interest in LGBT individuals and the issues impacting them has long had great significance to the community’s social, political, and legal progress. The last decade has seen monumental changes in public attitudes about LGBT people and the laws that affect them in the United States and around the world. Much of this change has been positive, including the landmark Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. In some parts of the world—even those that have witnessed great strides for LGBT equality—there have also been signs of a backlash against the community’s newfound rights and visibility in society. Stereotypes of LGBT individuals, mostly negative, have been responsible for much of this reaction, as well as their historically negative view in by the public. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the mass media has played a major role in creating and perpetuating these stereotypes.

“The Other Side”: Assessing the Polarization of Gender Knowledge Through a Feminist Analysis of the Affective-Discursive in Anti-Feminist Online Communities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Kathrin Rothermel
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Knowledge Generation ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Public ◽  
Production Building ◽  
Gender Knowledge

Abstract Given the current polarization of gender knowledge in the public discourse, this article investigates the “other side” of gender knowledge production. Building on feminist standpoint literature, I conduct a close reading of the affective-discursive dynamics of knowledge production in two anti-feminist online communities in the United States and India. I find that anti-feminist communities appropriate feminist practices of consciousness-raising to construct a shared sense of victimization. This appropriation is, however, incomplete. In contrast to feminist practices, anti-feminist knowledge generation is premised on the polarizing themes of “ultimate victimhood” and “ultimate other,” which lead to violence and exclusion, rather than liberation.

Public Opinion on Unites States-Canadian Relations

1974 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Sigler ◽  
Dennis Goresky
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Other ◽  
Relative Degree ◽  
Transnational Politics ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Unites States

Primary attention has been paid in much of the writing on public attitudes on foreign affairs to opinions about official interstate relations and foreign policy. One of the merits of the transnational politics paradigm is that it calls attention to the possibility that intersocietal relations may condition or influence the climate as well as the agenda of interstate relations. For the public opinion analyst, the paradigm invites attention to the relative degree of importance assigned by publics to intersocietal as contrasted to interstate relations and how changes in attitudes toward one sector may influence the climate in which relations in the other sector are conducted.

Basic U. S. Sources For Current Research In International Law: An Elementary Vade-Mecum

1977 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adolf Sprudzs
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intergovernmental Organizations ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Many ◽  
The U.S

Among the many old and new actors on the international stage of nations the United States is one of the most active and most important. The U.S. is a member of most existing intergovernmental organizations, participates in hundreds upon hundreds of international conferences and meetings every year and, in conducting her bilateral and multilateral relations with the other members of the community of nations, contributes very substantially to the development of contemporary international law. The Government of the United States has a policy of promptly informing the public about developments in its relations with other countries through a number of documentary publication, issued by the Department of State

scholarly journals Public fear of protesters and support for protest policing: An experimental study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christi Metcalfe ◽  
Justin Pickett
Keyword(s):  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Nationwide Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Legitimacy ◽  
Weapon Carrying ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Protest Policing ◽  
Contextual Characteristics ◽  
Police Control

As protests erupted across the United States in recent years over politically polarized issues (e.g., Black Lives Matter, COVID-19 restrictions), so too did questions about when and how police should respond. The context of these protests and how police reacted to them varied substantially, with limited understanding of relevant public attitudes. Public opinion is double-edged; it is critical for police legitimacy and influences criminal justice policy, but it also often reflects racial animus. We hypothesized that disruptive, dangerous, or unlawful protest tactics would increase support for police control, by elevating public fear, but also that support for repression would be higher when protest goals conflict with preexisting racial beliefs. To test our hypotheses, we embedded an experiment in a nationwide survey fielded in 2020, after George Floyd’s killing sparked the broadest protests in U.S. history. We randomized protest tactics (e.g., weapon carrying, violence) and goals, as well as other contextual characteristics (e.g., protest size). We found that the public generally opposed repressive protest policing. However, certain protest tactics increased support for repression by increasing public fear. Protest goals (e.g., pro-Black Lives Matter, anti-COVID-19 restrictions, or pro-confederate monuments) also impacted support for repression, but the effect depended on respondents’ racial beliefs.

scholarly journals It Takes Three: How Mass Media Coverage Conditions Public Responsiveness to Policy Outputs in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Williams ◽  
Martijn Schoonvelde
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Policy Area ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Public Demand

Democratic governance requires that policy outcomes and public demand for policy be linked. While studies have shown empirical support for such a relationship in various policy domains, empirical evidence also indicates that the public is relatively unaware of policy outputs. This raises a puzzle: Why do policy outputs influence public attitudes if the public knows little about them?MethodsThis study seeks to address this paradox by examining the conditioning role of media coverage. We rely on data derived from the Policy Agendas Project in the United States, allowing us to analyze the relationship between policy outcomes, public preferences, and newspaper content across a long span of time (1972–2007).ResultsOur results indicate that public policy preferences respond to policy outputs, and that this relationship is strengthened by greater media attention to a policy area. Importantly, our findings also indicate that without media attention to a policy area, there is no direct effect of policy outputs on public demand for policy.ConclusionsMedia coverage appears to be a key factor for public responsiveness to occur. In the absence of policy coverage by the media, public responsiveness to policy outputs is greatly reduced.

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