The Perception of Public Opinion between Likes, Comments and Media

What Determines the Individual Perception of Public Opinion?

Seminararbeit , 2018 , 15 Seiten , Note: 1,3

Medien / Kommunikation - Medien und Politik, Pol. Kommunikation

Especially for democratic political systems, public opinion plays a major role in the political Research on public opinion often focuses on aggregated effects. But how do individuals assess what millions of people they have never met think about single issues? In recent years, SNS have become increasingly important for politics. They pose a new means of campaign activities and are targets of new laws, e.g. the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz in Germany, but have also been used for deception (cf. Hameleers and Schmuck 2017, Esser, Stepinska and Hopmann 2016). These developments and the lack of-up-to-date evidence in the literature led me to the following research question: What determines the individual perception of public opinion?
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. After some remarks concerning the definition of the term public opinion, I will discuss single influential works for the field in general and, briefly, the literature of the past two decades examining the specific micro-level relationship. As the paper aims to examine current implications, a focus lies on the effects of aggregated user opinion representations and comments on SNS embedded in the frameworks of the spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann 1974, 1977, 1993), social projection (Fields and Schuman 1976) and the persuasive press inference (Gunther 1998).

Table of Contents

1. The Individual Perception Matters

2. What Determines the Individual Perception of Public Opinion? - An Overview
2.1 The Individual’s Own Opinion
2.1.1 Social Projection
2.1.2 Possible Intervening Variables
2.1.3 Implications in Regard to Filter Bubbles
2.2 The Spiral of Silence Applied: The Influence of Comments and Likes
2.2.1 The Spiral of Silence in the Age of the Web 2.0
2.2.2 Possible Opinion Cues From Likes and Approval Ratings
2.2.3 Reading Comments Online - Substantive and Substantial Influence or a Waste of Time?
2.3 The Persuasive Press Inference and its Implicationsp

3. Hypotheses

4. Bibliography

• Hochschule: Universität Mannheim
• Note: 1,3
• Autor: Christin Rudolph (Autor:in)
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2018
• Seiten: 15
• Katalognummer: V465471
• ISBN (eBook): 9783668938342
• ISBN (Buch): 9783668938359
• Sprache: Englisch
• Schlagworte: Perception, Public Opinion, Political Communication, Political Talk, Social Media, SNS, Social Projection, Filter Bubble, Spiral of Silence, Persuasive Press Inference, Online Comments, Web 2.0, False Consensus Bias, Microlevel, Political Science