Altering the Foundations of Support for the President Through Priming

The disclosure that high officials within the Reagan administration had covertly diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras funds obtained from the secret sale of weapons to Iran provides us with a splendid opportunity to examine how the foundations of popular support shift when dramatic events occur. According to our theory of priming, the more attention media pay to a particular domain—the more the public is primed with it—the more citizens will incorporate what they know about that domain into their overall judgment of the president. Data from the 1986 National Election Study confirm that intervention in Central America loomed larger in the public's assessment of President Reagan's performance after the Iran-Contra disclosure than before. Priming was most pronounced for aspects of public opinion most directly implicated by the news coverage, more apparent in political notices' judgments than political experts', and stronger in the evaluations of Reagan's overall performance than in assessments of his character.

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Issue Evolution?

The Path to Gay Rights ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479822133.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 125-147

Author(s):

Jeremiah J. Garretson

Keyword(s):

Public Opinion ◽

Attitude Change ◽

Media Coverage ◽

Gay Rights ◽

Election Study ◽

The Public ◽

National Election Study ◽

Gays In The Military ◽

Mass Opinion ◽

The Military

Chapter 5 begins the book’s examination of mass opinion change by first looking at the effects of Clinton’s endorsement of gay rights in 1992 and the 1993 gays-in-the-military debate. Using the American National Election Study, a small movement of Democrats in the public appear to have shifted more liberal on gay rights in 1992, but the magnitude of the effect was small. Likewise, the 1993 gays-in-the-military debate only resulted in polarization along political lines, not liberalization. However, declining fear of AIDS in the mid-1990s appear to have caused some attitude change. This leads to the conclusion that media coverage of gay rights in 1992 and 1993 only moved public opinion in a relatively minor fashion.

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Measuring State Public Opinion with the Senate National Election Study

State Politics & Policy Quarterly ◽

10.1177/153244000100100107 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 111-125 ◽

Cited By ~ 66

Author(s):

Barbara Norrander

Keyword(s):

Public Opinion ◽

State Politics ◽

National Election ◽

Election Study ◽

Public Preferences ◽

National Election Study ◽

American National Election Study

The surveys of Senate races from 1988 to 1992 conducted by the American National Election Study include a number of issue questions that can be aggregated to measure state public opinion. A simple-to-compute coefficient is used to judge the aggregated reliability of these measures. A comparison of these state public opinion measures on specific issues to more general indicators, such as state ideology and partisanship, demonstrates their usefulness in obtaining a richer depiction of public preferences for studies of state politics.

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Reality Asserts Itself: Public Opinion on Iraq and the Elasticity of Reality

International Organization ◽

10.1017/s0020818310000172 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 64 (3) ◽

pp. 443-479 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Matthew A. Baum ◽

Tim Groeling

Keyword(s):

Public Opinion ◽

Public Attitudes ◽

Public Support ◽

News Coverage ◽

Public Perceptions ◽

The Public ◽

Sustained Change ◽

Disaggregated Data ◽

Original Survey ◽

Over Time

AbstractPrevailing theories hold that U.S. public support for a war depends primarily on its degree of success, U.S. casualties, or conflict goals. Yet, research into the framing of foreign policy shows that public perceptions concerning each of these factors are often endogenous and malleable by elites. In this article, we argue that both elite rhetoric and the situation on the ground in the conflict affect public opinion, but the qualities that make such information persuasive vary over time and with circumstances. Early in a conflict, elites (especially the president) have an informational advantage that renders public perceptions of “reality” very elastic. As events unfold and as the public gathers more information, this elasticity recedes, allowing alternative frames to challenge the administration's preferred frame. We predict that over time the marginal impact of elite rhetoric and reality will decrease, although a sustained change in events may eventually restore their influence. We test our argument through a content analysis of news coverage of the Iraq war from 2003 through 2007, an original survey of public attitudes regarding Iraq, and partially disaggregated data from more than 200 surveys of public opinion on the war.

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