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In the 21st century, public opinion is widely thought to be heavily influenced by the media; many studies have been undertaken which look at the different factors which influence public opinion. Politicians and other people concerned with public opinion often attempt to influence it using advertising or rhetoric.
News outlets can influence public opinion by controlling variables in news presentation. News gatherers curate facts to underscore a certain angle. Presentation method—such as time of broadcast, extent of coverage and choice of news medium—can also frame the message; this can create, replace, or reinforce a certain viewpoint in an audience.
Agenda-setting theory was formally developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Lewis Shaw in a study on the 1968 presidential election deemed "the Chapel Hill study". McCombs and Shaw demonstrated a strong correlation between one hundred Chapel Hill residents' thought on what was the most important election issue and what the local news media reported was the most important issue.
Opinion leaders are those initially exposed to a specific media content, and who interpret it based on their own opinion. They then begin to infiltrate these opinions through the general public who become "opinion followers". [1] These "opinion leaders" gain their influence through more elite media as opposed to mainstream mass media. [2]
The degree to which a person identifies with a political party influences voting behavior, [2] as does social identity. [3] Voter decision-making is not a purely rational endeavor but rather is profoundly influenced by personal and social biases and deeply held beliefs [ 4 ] as well as characteristics such as personality, memory , emotions ...
The book has been called "the single most important book on public opinion since V. O. Key's 1961 classic, Public Opinion and American Democracy." [1] Zaller argues that public opinion is heavily influenced by exposure to elite discourse on political matters. He attributes variation in political attitudes between individuals to individual-level ...
Current research shows that "social bots" are being used on a large scale to control the opinion climate to influence public opinion on social media. [33] In some cases only a small number of social bots can easily direct public opinion on social media and trigger a spiral of silence model. [34]
Theories of political behavior, as an aspect of political science, attempt to quantify and explain the influences that define a person's political views, ideology, and levels of political participation, especially in relation to the role of politicians and their impact on public opinion .