TY - JOUR
AU - Mcleod, Jack M.
AB - POLITICAL COMMUNICATION 29 e Public Opinion, Communication Processes, and Voting Decisions CARROll J. GLYNN. JACK M. MclEOD University of Wisconsin-Madison OLITICAL communication research has had as much trouble as other social science fields in developing appropriate concepts at the social system level. The concept of " public opinion" serves as a case in point. Public opinion has been treated conceptually as if it were some kind of "superorganic" being that expresses its view upon various issues as they arise. Despite this mysterious collective-system-Ievel con­ ceptual definition, operational definitions of public opinion have been restricted to statements about what percentage of individuals interviewed hold what views - e.g., 60 percent of U.S. adults think the president is doing a good job. The assumption implicit in estimates of the state of public opinion is that it will lead to various types of societal outcomes; a given candidate will be reelected, for example. Unfortunately, the evidence for the validity of this assumption is not strong. Public sentiment seems elusively changeable and the connection between an individual's opinion and subsequent behavior has been shown to be weak (LaPiere, 1934; DeFleur & Westie, 1963; Festinger, 1964; Wicker, 1969; Seibold, 1975). One reason offered for 
TI - Public Opinion, Communication Processes, and Voting Decisions
JO - Annals of the International Communication Association
DO - 10.1080/23808985.1982.11678521
DA - 1982-01-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/public-opinion-communication-processes-and-voting-decisions-yxrXcSwja6
SP - 759
EP - 774
VL - 6
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -