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Michael MacKuen reviews 'Predictions of Public Opinion from the Mass Media: Computer Content Analysis and Mathematical Modeling,' by David P. Fan.

This article examines individual responsiveness to the media's changing political agenda during the years from 1964 to 1980. In the context of a dynamic model, the data indicate that responsiveness is positively associated with education, political interest, and a social motivation to attend to public affairs. A two-component model, in which heightened involvement increases individuals' exposure to information but also decreases their receptivity to the impact of the messages, is considered in a multivariate analysis. Although the results are only suggestive, the exposure function appears to operate for all three variables, whereas the inhibitions owing to the integration of previous information are evident only for political interest. Some speculations are offered about how these results may elaborate models of democratic public choice.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ; Belief systems after converse / Donald R. Kinder -- Democracy with attitudes / Larry M. Bartels -- The political psychology of party identification / Herbert F. Weisberg and Steve H. Greene -- Process matters: cognitive models of candidate evaluation / Marco Steenbergen and Milton Lodge -- Policy issues and electoral democracy / Stuart Elaine Macdonald, Geroge Rabinowitz and Holly Brasher -- Elections and the dynamics of ideological representation / Michael B. MacKuen . [et al.] -- The heavenly public: what would a fully informed citizenry be like? / Robert C. Luskin -- The nature of belief in a mass public / Michael W. Traugot --- Electoral democracy during policts as usual, and unusual / John Aldrich -- Coming to grips with V.O. Key's concept of latent opinion / John Zaller. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Political context has an important impact on individual attitude change. This is an analysis of the dynamic effects of contextual variables. Drawing on data taken from the American National Election Study (ANES) panel study, we demonstrate that the environment shapes the way the citizen views politics. While varying in degree, the results hold for a broad (county-level) and a narrow (residential neighborhood-level) definition of the relevant context. The patterns involved suggest that citizens' evaluations of candidates and parties are most directly influenced by what their neighbors are saying at the moment, that is to say, the content of current discussion. In contrast, citizens' self-identification evinces sensitivity to the more stable partisan character of the environment. The results indicate that the impact of social influence is crucially dependent on the nature of contemporary political debate and that the social setting serves as an intervening mechanism in the broader communication system and not merely as an exogenous source for political information.