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Shaping Public Opinion

Shaping public opinion is the act of intentionally manipulating or changing the beliefs, perspectives, or common sentiment of a particular demographic. This is often achieved by utilizing approaches based on psychology in conjunction with methods of information dissemination or subliminal advertising. Public opinion can be influenced by public relations, books, influencers, media, or social media. Additionally, mass media utilizes a wide variety of advertising techniques to get their message out and change the minds of people. Since the 1950s, television has been the main medium for molding public opinion, although social media is becoming a dominant force in todays age.

History

Public opinion, an aggregate of the individual views, attitudes, and beliefs about a particular topic, expressed by a significant proportion of a community. Some scholars treat the aggregate as a synthesis of the views of all or a certain segment of society; others regard it as a collection of many differing or opposing views. Writing in 1918, the American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley emphasized public opinion as a process of interaction and mutual influence rather than a state of broad agreement. The American political scientist V.O. Key defined public opinion in 1961 as “opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed.” Subsequent advances in statistical and demographic analysis led by the 1990s to an understanding of public opinion as the collective view of a defined population, such as a particular demographic or ethnic group.

The influence of public opinion is not restricted to politics and elections. It is a powerful force in many other spheres, such as culture, fashion, literature and the arts, consumer spending, and marketing and public relations.

In his eponymous treatise on public opinion published in 1922, the American editorialist Walter Lippmann qualified his observation that democracies tend to make a mystery out of public opinion with the declaration that “there have been skilled organizers of opinion who understood the mystery well enough to create majorities on election day.” Although the reality of public opinion is now almost universally accepted, there is much variation in the way it is defined, reflecting in large measure the different perspectives from which scholars have approached the subject. Contrasting understandings of public opinion have taken shape over the centuries, especially as new methods of measuring public opinion have been applied to politics, commerce, religion, and social activism.

Political scientists and some historians have tended to emphasize the role of public opinion in government and politics, paying particular attention to its influence on the development of government policy. Indeed, some political scientists have regarded public opinion as equivalent to the national will. In such a limited sense, however, there can be only one public opinion on an issue at any given time.

Sociologists, in contrast, usually conceive of public opinion as a product of social interaction and communication. According to this view, there can be no public opinion on an issue unless members of the public communicate with each other. Even if their individual opinions are quite similar to begin with, their beliefs will not constitute a public opinion until they are conveyed to others in some form, whether through television, radio, e-mail, social media, print media, phone, or in-person conversation. Sociologists also point to the possibility of there being many different public opinions on a given issue at the same time. Although one body of opinion may dominate or reflect government policy, for example, this does not preclude the existence of other organized bodies of opinion on political topics. The sociological approach also recognizes the importance of public opinion in areas that have little or nothing to do with government. The very nature of public opinion, according to the American researcher Irving Crespi, is to be interactive, multidimensional, and continuously changing. Thus, fads and fashions are appropriate subject matter for students of public opinion, as are public attitudes toward celebrities or corporations.

Nearly all scholars of public opinion, regardless of the way they may define it, agree that, in order for a phenomenon to count as public opinion, at least four conditions must be satisfied: (1) there must be an issue, (2) there must be a significant number of individuals who express opinions on the issue, (3) at least some of these opinions must reflect some kind of a consensus, and (4) this consensus must directly or indirectly exert influence.

In 1993 the German opinion researcher Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann characterized this phenomenon as a “spiral of silence,” noting that people who perceive that they hold a minority view will be less inclined to express it in public.

Mass media and social media

Newspapers and news and opinion Web sites, social media, radio, television, e-mail, and blogs are significant in affirming attitudes and opinions that are already established. The U.S. news media, having become more partisan in the first two decades of the 21st century, have focused conservative or liberal segments of the public on certain personalities and issues and generally reinforced their audience’s preexisting political attitudes.

Mass media and social media can also affirm latent attitudes and “activate” them, prompting people to take action. Just before an election, for example, voters who earlier had only a mild preference for one party or candidate may be inspired by media coverage not only to take the trouble to vote but perhaps also to contribute money or to help a party organization in some other way.

Mass media and social media, to varying extents, play another important role by letting individuals know what other people think and by giving political leaders large audiences. In this way the media make it possible for public opinion to encompass large numbers of individuals and wide geographic areas. It appears, in fact, that in some European countries the growth of broadcasting, especially television, affected the operation of the parliamentary system. Before television, national elections were seen largely as contests between a number of candidates or parties for parliamentary seats. As the electronic media grew more sophisticated technologically, elections increasingly assumed the appearance of a personal struggle between the leaders of the principal parties concerned. In the United States, presidential candidates have come to personify their parties. Once in office, a president can easily appeal to a national audience over the heads of elected legislative representatives.

Government approaches to shape public opinion or counter foreign influence of domestic opinion

In 2016, the State Department of the United States launched the Global Engagement Center with the specific intent of "Countering Foreign Propaganda and disinformation" after the passing of the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, a bipartisan bill that was introduced by the United States Congress on 10 May 2016. The Global Engagement Center works to combat foreign sources of information that could change the opinions and beliefs of the domestic population through use of propaganda or misinformation.

Some countries control the flow of information in the media to shape their populations views and beliefs, or acclimate them towards acceptable social or cultural values. In North Korea, the government owns a majority of the media outlets, and so it employs a concentrated approach to advocating for the current government and political regime.