The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John R. Zaller

In a subsequent article, Zaller backtracks from his argument in The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion and maintains that the influence elites exercise over public opinion is less than he had originally claimed. In Zaller’s words, 'most of what gets measured as public opinion does not exist except in the presence of a pollster'. Thus, Zaller argues, there is a positive correlation between political awareness and the consistency and stability of political opinions.įollowing the RAS model, political opinion surveys are not valid measures of public opinion as they do not measure an individual’s 'true preferences' or capture an individual's pre-existing opinions (as Zaller argues they don't pre-exist firmly for most people), but instead the balance of considerations that are most salient to the surveyee at that particular instant.

Less aware individuals receive fewer messages, but are more likely to accept them (even if they are conflicting).

They are also, due to their exposure to multiple and often conflicting messages, less likely to accept messages that are inconsistent with their prior attitudes (i.e., they are more selective). Politically more aware individuals are more likely to pick up ('receive') elite messages. Zaller’s argument as to how individuals form survey responses is effectively summarized by his 'Receive-Accept-Sample' (RAS) model, according to which the opinions individuals express reflect the messages they have received (contingent on the degree of political awareness), accepted (contingent on consistency with prior beliefs), and sampled from (contingent on what issues hold priority at that moment). He attributes variation in political attitudes between individuals to individual-level differences in receptivity to this discourse, in terms of political awareness (i.e., does an individual receive political messages from elites?) and concordance with prior beliefs (i.e., do the messages received conform to an individual’s basic political values?).īy rejecting the notion that voters hold single preferences (or, in fact, that individuals possess structured belief systems from which they can derive policy preferences), the book challenges the usefulness of public opinion surveys.

Zaller argues that public opinion is heavily influenced by exposure to elite discourse on political matters.

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John R. Zaller