What Is Public Opinion
"Whoever desires to grasp and define the concept of public opinion will recognize quickly that he is dealing with a Proteus, a being that appears simultaneously in a thousand guises, both visible and as a phantom, impotent and surprisingly efficacious, which presents itself in innumerable transformations and is forever slipping through our fingers just as we believe we have a firm grip on it...That which floats and flows cannot be understood by being locked up in a formula...After all, when asked, everyone knows exactly what public opinion means." -Oncken
The term public opinion first emerged in France during the eighteenth century. The definition of public opinion has been debated over for a very long time. There has not been much progress in locking in one classification of the phrase public opinion. It was said to be a "fiction that belonged in a museum of the history of ideas; it could only be of historical interest." In contradiction to that quote, the term public opinion seemed to not cease. During the early 1970s, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann was creating the theory of the spiral of silence. She was making an effort to clarify the 1965 finding of which voting intentions would not change but yet expectations that one side would win continued to increase. Noelle-Nuemann began to question if she was indeed grabbing a handle on what public opinion actually was. "The spiral of silence might be one of the forms in which public opinion appeared; it might be a process through which a new, youthful public opinion develops or whereby the transformed meaning of an old opinion spreads." If this quote from Noelle-Neumann is applicable, it is more than necessary to provide a definition of public opinion or the spiral of silence theory would be stated as a process by which something indefinable is spread. "It is cheap" was how American sociologist Edward Ross described public opinion in 1898. "The equation of "public opinion" with "ruling opinion" runs like a common thread through its many definitions. This speaks to the fact that something clinging to public opinion sets up conditions that move individuals to act, even against their own will." Many possible meanings and definitions of the term have been explored. Scholars have considered the content of public opinion, assumed to consist of important public affairs issues. They have also considered whose opinion establishes public opinion, assumed to be persons of a community who are ready to express themselves responsibly about questions of public relevance. Scholars have also looked into the forms of public opinion, said to be those that are openly expressed and accessible; opinions that are made public, especially in the mass media. Controversy surrounding this term spiraled around both words combining to form the phrase.
Read more about this topic: Spiral Of Silence
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