Public Opinion

Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views [66]. In this section will discuss the

39 factors which impact on the public opinion as part of issues to add and retrieve comments as well as it will outlines some public opinion theories.

2.6.1 Factors Influencing Public Opinion

There are many different factors can impact on the users when the read comments in the news or articles. Some of them as external factors and the other are internal. This section will describe these factors.

2.6.1.1 Environmental Factors

Environment plays a crucial role in the development of attitude and opinions. Factors which influence the social environment are family, friends, surroundings, place of work or worship, etc [27]. People thus try to change their attitude according to the environment which is quite common in the group in which they live. Research shows that, if a United Sates citizen considers himself to be a liberal is likely to vote conservative candidates, if surrounded by people who profess conservatism in his home or at his workplace, than a liberal who is surrounded by people of similar political opinion. For example, during the World War II, people getting transferred to some other unit, adjust their views; according to the general views of the unit he got transferred [27].

2.6.1.2 The Mass Media

Mass media channels such as Newspaper, radio, television and internet, including e-mails and blogs, may not have that influencing power, but still they are important, especially when conforming to already established attitude and views. The focus of public attention on certain personalities and issues by the news media, leads to form

40 opinions about them. Public’s trend to follow the headlines was also affirmed by government officials’ [27]. Mass media has the capability to activate the dormant attitude and to prompt them to act. For example, before elections, voters having an inclination towards a single party or a particular candidate may also get de-inclined by media and start voting or even giving monetary support to the party. It also enables a person to know what others are thinking or give political leaders to reach a larger audience [27]. This makes possible for the mass media to reach to a large number of individuals and wider geographies influencing opinions. In fact, some European countries have seen an effect on their parliamentary system because of a wider reach of mass media like Television [112]. Previously elections were a contest to secure a seat in the parliament, but television changed it, and that happened only between candidates of different parties [38]. But with the advent of e-media which grew more with sophisticated technology, elections became a personal fight even within the parties [112].

In underdeveloped and developing countries the spread of mass media is low and here the information flow is largely dependent on word of mouth, although on a smaller scale. This is also same for countries where media is under strict control. Newspapers and gatherings in villages around radios or community television; are the common source for information flow among people who are literates through words of mouth.

Countries having a controlled media, a substantial number of news are spread through rumours [38]. Spread of words though rumours and ways such as text messaging are the only channel though which public views are circulated, even though the movement of

41 message is slow and involve number of people rather than in a country where the media network is dense and controlled.

2.6.1.3 Interest Groups

Non-Government Organisations (NGO), Interest groups, labour unions and religious groups form and spread public opinions on issues which are connected. They may have common issues on politics, economics or ideology and most of them work with mass media along with other form of person to person communication. Many of these large and influential groups around the earth use advertisements and relationships. An effective and popular tactics is informal polling or straw vote. In these polling members are supposed to vote “vote” on unsystematic “polls” of public opinions carried out without proper public sampling procedures, usually through phone or internet. Multiple votes are encouraged by the group and once they publish it through a credible media, they claim it legitimate by providing references [38].

2.6.2 Public Opinion Theories

To understand the public opinions, surveys are conducted which is also a scientific. But as per James c. Scott, in a political environment which is authoritative, individuals who are part of the survey, stay on at two levels, official and un-official. Official Level also known as public transcript level, people say what is to be considered as official.

Questions on sensitive political issues, they provide the “Correct” answer. Individuals are structural forced to associate with the existing system, to save them along with the family, where Leninist system is there, which control of economy, access to housing, jobs, passport, education and administrative services. But at the un-official level,

42 individuals are tied together on trust and local views of expressed justice like; jokes, gossips, etc. Low levels of censorships provide views, which are not present on the official version. To capture an alternative meaning of the public opinions, analysts of political culture, must decrypt, what is encoded in official and un-official versions [66,112].Therefore in China, surveying of public opinions, requires a great deal of interpretation, assuming one can capture the unofficial story, to understand the forces that inform public views [161].