Answer: The formal academic study of public opinion is relatively new but the practical study of public opinion is
not new at all. Governments have paid attention to public opinion as long as there have been
governments. Even the most oppressive tyrants need to know what the people are thinking, even if just to
oppress them more effectively. As the famous investigator of public opinion, V.O. Key, Jr. said,
“Governments must concern themselves with the opinions of their citizens, if only to provide a basis for
repression of disaffection.” (1961, 3)
One of the earliest expressions of public opinion was rebellion. Peasant rebellions have occurred
throughout history. When the king saw his subjects in open rebellion, it was a pretty clear sign that the
public’s support for his government was eroding. Unpaid taxes was another clue; when rulers saw their
tax receipts dwindle and heard reports of tax collectors being killed, they knew that public opinion was
turning against them.
For centuries rulers have established secret police forces to find out which people oppose the government
and to eliminate them. Secret police have, among other things, acted as monitors of public opinion.
Fortunately, not all governments need to hire secret police or wait for peasant rebellions to learn about
public opinion. Democratic governments, especially, have much better procedures to learn about public
opinion and measure it. In this chapter, we explore ways that governments can learn about, and act on,
their citizens’ opinions. We classify the methods of learning public opinion into informal and formal
methods. The informal are very important but they do not involve any formal explicit research
methodologies. Informal methodologies include elections, letters from constituents, media coverage, and
protest marches. Formal methods, on the other hand, involve definite research designs and formal
research methodologies; they are methods designed by experts to research public opinion. Examples of
formal methodologies are telephone surveys, focus groups, and content analysis.
In this book, like practically every book on public opinion, we devote most of the coverage to formal
research methods, especially survey research. But because of our focus on how opinions held by
members of the public get translated into public policy, we spend more time on the “informal” methods
here than is customary in a book like this. We attempt to view public opinion as governmental decision
makers would see it. In the real world of politics, these governmental leaders find out about people’s
opinions in a variety of ways, both informal and formal. We will once again emphasize the informal
ways that political leaders learn about public opinion in the chapter on political participation. We will see
in that chapter that the informal methods tend to favor the wealthy and educated members of the society
Explanation:
