The Public Opinion Process: How the People Speak
In: Routledge Communication Series
What is public opinion? How can we best study it? This work presents a ""process model"" that answers these questions by defining public opinion in a way that also identifies an approach to studying it. The model serves as a framework into which the findings of empirical research are integrated, producing a comprehensive understanding of public opinion that encompasses the congeries of middle-range theories that have emerged from empirical research. The three-dimensional process model--and the way it is explicated--satisfies the diverse and sometimes divergent needs and interests of politica