Information effects in collective preferences
By: ALTHAUS, Scott L
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ArticlePublisher: New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, September 1998American Political Science Review 92, 3, p. 545-558Abstract: A number of path-breaking studies in recent years have suggested that the mass public's inattention to politics may have less bearing on the quality of its collective opinions than previously thought (e.g., Converse 1990; Page and Shapiro 1992; Popkin 1991; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991; Wittman 1995). These studies emphasize that while most individuals tend to be ill informed about the political world, the availability of heuristic shortcuts and the filtering process of statistical aggregation may help compensate for this lack of knowledge in measures of collective opinion, such as election results or opinion surveys. If this line of thinking is correct, then we can conclude with Page and Shapiro (1992, 385) that opinion surveys provide a "good deal of coherent guidance about policy." If the mass public is unable to compensate effectively for its lack of political knowledge, then the use of surveys and other measures of collective opinion as inputs to the political process may be rightly questioned.
A number of path-breaking studies in recent years have suggested that the mass public's inattention to politics may have less bearing on the quality of its collective opinions than previously thought (e.g., Converse 1990; Page and Shapiro 1992; Popkin 1991; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991; Wittman 1995). These studies emphasize that while most individuals tend to be ill informed about the political world, the availability of heuristic shortcuts and the filtering process of statistical aggregation may help compensate for this lack of knowledge in measures of collective opinion, such as election results or opinion surveys. If this line of thinking is correct, then we can conclude with Page and Shapiro (1992, 385) that opinion surveys provide a "good deal of coherent guidance about policy." If the mass public is unable to compensate effectively for its lack of political knowledge, then the use of surveys and other measures of collective opinion as inputs to the political process may be rightly questioned.
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