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Pollsters measure the public's opinion of everything from television programs to commercial products to political issues. Politicians and networks commission polls because they want the public's approval.

Public opinion is not uniform. The majority of Americans watch the most popular television shows. Many programs are designed to receive favorable ratings from a specific subgroup of society.

Young, middle-class audiences are the most sought after by advertisers and networks seek high ratings from them.

Advertisers are less interested in senior citizens.

The same holds true when it comes to political issues. They need to be aware of the political issues that affect their day-today lives. A political issue doesn't have to interest the majority of Americans to be important to politicians.

The issue may become an important political issue to cause those voters to become more politically active. Most politicians don't seek the approval of the general public. With the exception of the president, politicians measure the public opinion of their constituencies in order to appeal to them. The concerns of the home districts of members of the House of Representatives are more important to them than the concerns of the general public.

Those who measure public opinion are interested in how the public feels at a given moment. They want to know how strongly the public feels and how likely people are to change their minds.

The degree to which an issue is important to a group is the saliency. Social Security is an issue for senior citizens. Social Security is less popular among young voters.

Political influence can be far beyond a group's numbers when the intensity of their opinion is high.

Some dimensions of public opinion, such as support for democracy and a free-market economy, are stable. During the last two years of George H. W. Bush's administration, presidential approval ratings could change quickly. The highest approval ratings of any president since 1945 were recorded by President Bush during the Gulf War. The majority of Americans voted against him less than two years later.

Public opinion is measured through elections in the United States. Public opinion is measured indirectly by elections because votes for--or against--candidates can rarely be translated into clear and specific opinions.

Public opinion polls ask questions of a much smaller group to determine public opinion. Pollsters use a computer to dial numbers. If pollsters were to approach only those voters who seemed most friendly or anxious to participate, this method would discourage bias.

Polls can measure the opinions of 300 million Americans by polling a small group within a 5% margin of error.

Carefully worded questions are needed for a poll to accurately reflect public opinion. Pollsters try to phrase questions in an objective way. Polls ask multiple-choice questions, which are closed-ended, as opposed to open-ended questions, such as "Explain why you approve or disapprove of the death penalty."

A more accurate read of the direction and intensity of public opinion can be provided by closed-ended questions.

Polls can't be 100% accurate even with those controls. The poll results should include how accurate the polls are. The percentage with a plus and minus sign to the left is the accuracy. A poll might show that a majority of Americans favor the death penalty. The percentage of Americans in favor of the death penalty could be anywhere between 56 and 64% if that poll had a sampling error of + 4%.

The Gallup poll is the most well-known. Major newspapers and television networks conduct public opinion polls.

Public opinion is based on the views of individuals.

People eventually join the same political party as their parents. Children's political beliefs are influenced by their parents' moral and ethical values. Many Americans have political values instilled in them from a young age. People born in rural states may have more conservative political views.

Political socialization is influenced by other factors as children grow. Youth is a time when Americans pay little attention to political issues and have little interest in them. Most political issues have little impact on their day-to-day lives.

College can be a time of radical change in an individual's political beliefs. Many of the political attitudes that students acquire in college are retained throughout their lives.

People who own property tend to be more conservative.

People who experience bias based on their race or gender may become more liberal or less cynical about government. Adults are influenced by participation in religious organizations, by the attitudes of their peers, and by what they learn through the news media.

Conservatives want individuals to be responsible for their own wellbeing and not rely on government assistance.

They oppose government interference in the private sector. They prefer the market to determine costs and acceptable business practices. Social conservatives, who make up a powerful wing of the conservative population, support government action on social issues. 42% of Americans thought they were conservatives in a 2015 Gallup poll.

Liberals believe that the government should only be used to remedy the social and economic inequalities of the marketplace. Government regulation of the economy is supported by them. Affirmative action is one of the programs they support. Most liberals believe the government should strictly enforce the separation of church and state, and therefore oppose schoolsponsored prayer and proposed bans on abortions, which they perceive as motivated by religious beliefs. 26% of Americans considered themselves to be liberal in a Gallup poll.

Moderates do not have a coherent ideology.

Moderates view themselves as pragmatists who apply common sense to political problems. The financial crisis of 2008 has shown a decline in the number of moderates in the American public. According to a Gallup poll, 34% of Americans considered themselves to be moderate.

Americans have fewer ideological groups than other Western democracies. The United States does not have many extreme political parties like the ones in Europe.

Americans vote outside of their political beliefs because of the lack of viable groups.

In 2008, 20% of conservative voters chose Barack Obama over John McCain due to the economic crisis and negative perception of George W. Bush.

The most politically active Americans are those who are strongly ideological. They are more likely to join political organizations and participate in political activities than other Americans. Candidates in the presidential primaries have to perform a balancing act. They need to appeal to the more ideological party members in order to win the primaries. If candidates move back to the political center in the general elections, they risk alienating the general voting public.

For a more detailed explanation of political beliefs by party, see the next chapter.

People who share certain characteristics tend to share political beliefs. Some factors influence people's political attitudes.

The groups that disproportionately populate the lower income levels are more liberal than the other Americans. Hispanics and blacks are more likely to support liberal social programs. Cuban Americans, for one, have tended to be conservative.

Jews and African-American Protestants are the most liberal religious groups in the United States. Many Catholics are conservative on social issues. White Protestants are more conservative. In the South, white Protestants who attend church regularly are among the strongest supporters of the Republican Party.

Women are more liberal than men. They are more likely to vote Democratic, more likely to support government social welfare programs, and less likely to support increases in military spending.

Liberal goals such as racial and sexual equality are more supported by Americans in higher income brackets.

They support international cooperation. Poorer Americans are more conservative on issues other than social welfare.

There are differences in economic and social interests. The most liberal region of the country is the East Coast. These "red states" are made of conservatism in the more religious South. The West Coast of the United States is the most divided, with strong liberal and conservative contingencies scattered up and down the coast, though this region has leaned more to the left in recent years. Conservatives are generally conservative in small towns and more rural areas.

By deciding which news stories to cover and which to ignore, and by returning to some stories night after night while allowing others to die after a few reports, the news media play an important part in determining the relative importance of political issues. The public's interest in a story limits the media's power. When the crisis in Bosnia was covered by the US, it did little to raise public awareness of or interest in the story, because many Americans thought it was too remote to be of interest. The process of setting the national agenda is not static. As interest grows, coverage increases, and the story becomes more important, the media tries to report stories they think will interest the public.

Most Americans get their most extensive exposure to politicians from these media. They act as a conduit between the people and the government, constantly questioning the motives and purposes of government actions and then reporting their findings to the public.

Higher literacy rates and the expansion of news sources have increased public exposure to news media.

Over the years, the media has played a significant role in shaping public opinion.

Is the media able to change public opinion?

When news coverage is extensive, it is believed that the media affect public opinion. Many Americans were turned against the Vietnam war because of a constant barrage of negative images broadcasted from Vietnam in the 1960s.

Studies have shown that public approval of the president can change depending on whether the news coverage is positive or negative. The media have little impact on public opinion.

The news media can't influence public opinion on a single issue because they cover many stories at the same time.

The news media reinforce political beliefs for Americans.

In addition to the news media, social media have become important tools for grassroots political movements. Social media sites can act as both a shaper and an indicator of public opinion with younger people.

Critics from both ends of the political spectrum claim that the news media puts their political beliefs into their reports. It's not uncommon for political pundits to accuse MSNBC of pushing a liberal agenda and FOX of being wildly conservative.

Conservatives cite polls that show that news reporters are more likely to vote Democratic than average Americans. Conservatives point out that the major news media is owned by conservative companies. They argue that these companies exert pressure on the networks to downplay or ignore stories that reflect badly on the companies or the economic and political forces that support them.

Many studies show that there is less ideological bias in news reporting than critics claim. Over the course of American history, the news media has become less biased. In the 18th and 19th centuries, most newspapers were openly partisan, but now many news organizations try to maintain journalistic integrity by remaining as objective as possible.

The trend toward objectivity is reinforced by commercial concerns. Biased reporting can appeal to one segment of the population, but it can also be alienating to another. Most news organizations try to represent both sides of a story in their reports in order to offend the least possible audience members.

This doesn't mean that the news media achieve complete objectivity. News organizations have to make hundreds of decisions each day about what to report. Many local newspapers ignore all but the most important international stories because they are uninteresting to their readers. Because of time constraints and fear, network news broadcasts shy away from more complex stories.

The media's need for an immediate audience appeal is a primary source of bias.

Time and space constraints can result in bias in news reporting. Television news programs report up to 20 stories during their 18 minutes of broadcast time and feature as many as 12 minutes of advertising. News broadcasts use short sound bites to summarize information, with presidential candidates' sound bites decreasing in length from about 40 seconds in 1968 to 7.3 seconds today.

The sources that reporters use for their information can make news reports biased. Reporters in Washington, D.C. have to rely on politicians and government sources for information.

This reliance has a complicated effect. On the other hand, reporters need to return to their government sources for future stories, so they try to not offend them with uncomplimentary reports.

There is a danger that reporters in Washington will become too close to the people and events they cover, leading to bias.

Reporters must demonstrate their independence and maintain their credibility. They can't consistently file favorable reports on the subjects they cover. According to surveys, reporters are more skeptical about politicians' motives than Americans are. The skepticism is reflected in their reporting.

As the news media have grown more prominent, public confidence in the government has decreased.

Modern politicians try to influence the coverage of the media. They stage events that yield appealing photographs and provide information in support of their positions.

On May 1, 2003 President George W. Bush gave a speech aboard the ship. The final day of combat operations in Iraq was when a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" was hung behind the president. Many politicians felt that the banner was misleading because casualties have continued for many years after. In recent years, attempts to manipulate media reports have grown more sophisticated. Ronald Reagan's success in handling press coverage has been studied by many politicians.

Public opinion can be measured by looking at saliency, intensity, and stability.

Many politicians base their decisions on polling data.

The term political socialization describes how people learn about politics as they get older.

Conservatives, liberals, and moderates are the three basic political ideologies in America.

Which factors lead to which ideologies? A black woman in Chicago is more likely to be liberal than a white man from the rural South.

Policies and news events are placed in the spotlight by the media. Creating a public agenda is also known as this.

Which is an accurate comparison between 4.

The following are considered to have low stability in the U.S.