Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Uniform Nature of Mass Opinion

政治学博士论文研究：大众舆论的统一性

• 批准号: 0617156
• 负责人: James Stimson
• 金额: $ 0.17万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-07-01 至 2007-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0617156&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

In the United States, preferences for a more liberal or conservative government yield policy shifts in the same direction. The representative consequences of this opinion-policy linkage depend, however, on who contributes to changes in public opinion. This project seeks to identify which segment(s) of the population contribute to aggregate opinion change. The project develops and tests a theory of opinion change that argues that prior research has incorrectly dismissed the ability of the least politically sophisticated to systematically update their political attitudes. The theory posits that the most and least politically sophisticated translate streams of positive and negative messages into impressions about political issues. Time series analysis is used to analyze the causal dynamics of opinion change - for the most and least sophisticated segments of society - for three "hard" issues: defense attitudes, welfare attitudes, and policy mood. The project also uses agent-based modeling to test the individual level assumptions of the theory.This research provides two important theoretical advances to the public opinion literature. First, the theory predicts that government responsiveness to public opinion reflects changing attitudes of all segments of society - not just the politically sophisticated. Second, the theory suggests that positive and negative media frames have a powerful influence on changes in public opinion. Even the most politically sophisticated respond systematically to frames and biases presented by the media. The research impacts the broader community. Understanding whose opinions are heard by government is of paramount importance for representative democracy.

在美国，对更自由或更保守的政府的偏好会导致政策朝同一方向转变。 然而，这种舆论-政策联系的代表性后果取决于谁促成了舆论的变化。 该项目旨在确定人口的哪些部分有助于总体意见的变化。 该项目开发并测试了一种观点改变的理论，认为先前的研究错误地忽视了政治上最不成熟的人系统地更新他们的政治态度的能力。 该理论认为，政治上最老练和最不老练的人会将积极和消极的信息转化为对政治问题的印象。 时间序列分析被用来分析意见变化的因果动态-为最复杂和最不复杂的社会部分-为三个“硬”问题：国防态度，福利态度和政策情绪。 本研究亦使用主体模型来验证理论中个人层面的假设，为公众意见文献提供两个重要的理论进展。 首先，该理论预测，政府对公众舆论的反应反映了社会各阶层态度的变化--而不仅仅是政治上老练的人。 第二，该理论表明，积极和消极的媒体框架对公众舆论的变化有着强大的影响。 即使是政治上最老练的人，也会对媒体提出的框架和偏见作出系统性的反应。 这项研究影响了更广泛的社区。 了解政府听取谁的意见对代议制民主至关重要。