In this 1992 book John Zaller develops a comprehensive theory to explain how people acquire political information from elites and the mass media and convert it into political preferences. Using numerous specific examples, Zaller applies this theory to the dynamics of public opinion on a broad range of subjects, including domestic and foreign policy, trust in government, racial equality, and presidential approval, as well as voting behaviour in U.S. House, Senate, and presidential elections. The thoery is constructed from ...
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In this 1992 book John Zaller develops a comprehensive theory to explain how people acquire political information from elites and the mass media and convert it into political preferences. Using numerous specific examples, Zaller applies this theory to the dynamics of public opinion on a broad range of subjects, including domestic and foreign policy, trust in government, racial equality, and presidential approval, as well as voting behaviour in U.S. House, Senate, and presidential elections. The thoery is constructed from four basic premises. The first is that individuals differ substantially in their attention to politics and therefore in their exposure to elite sources of political information. The second is that people react critically to political communication only to the extent that they are knowledgeable about political affairs. The third is that people rarely have fixed attitudes on specific issues; rather, they construct 'preference statements' on the fly as they confront each issue raised. The fourth is that, in constructing these statements, people make the greatest use of ideas that are, for various reasons, the most immediately salient to them. Zaller emphasizes the role of political elites in establishing the terms of political discourse in the mass media and the powerful effect of this framing of issues on the dynamics of mass opinion on any given issue over time.
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This is a great book that I highly recommend for study.
PoliSciStudent
Nov 13, 2008
Pertinent to Modern Political Science
I rated this book higher than I would have under other circumstances, mainly because it is a frequently cited text within the political science community. Beginning in the early 20th century, political science "modernized" itself by relegating theory and political philosophy to a station below empirical research. Ignoring the warnings of earlier scholars (e.g., Aristotle, Madison), modern political scientists sought to explain and predict politics and political behavior with arithmetic precision. The result is that statistical analysis is now the standard of inquiry.
Much of what Zaller discusses can be better understood by studying the nature of persuasive speech, i.e., rhetoric. The interaction between speaker and audience is the core of rhetoric and, therefore, the heart of political speech. Zaller's axiomatic model seems somewhat clumsy when compared, for example, to Aristotle's discourse on rhetoric, which reminds us of the importance of fundamental principles.
Alas, since Aristotle failed to provide an empirically-based model for predicting human behavior -- the kind affected by speech -- modern scholars, like Zaller, aim to fill this void. Regardless of whether this goal is practical, it will benefit students of modern political science to become familiar with the day's leading literature.
