This article examines how emotional reactions to political events shape public opinion. We analyze political discussions in which people voluntarily engage online to approximate the public agenda: Online discussions offer a natural approach to the salience of political issues and the means to analyze emotional reactions as political events take…

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AE) Program on American Citizenship has set out to explore what teachers and the public think high schools should be teaching about citizenship and whether they believe high schools are actually achieving those goals. In spring 2010, the authors developed and commissioned a survey,…

Voters in Ohio sent an unequivocal message to the state's Republican governor and lawmakers that they went too far in reining in collective bargaining for teachers and other public employees. But analysts say the conflict between the GOP and teachers' unions in Ohio and elsewhere is not over. By an overwhelming, 22-percentage-point margin,…

Focuses on five types of political alienation: estrangement; negative evaluation of the American political system, negative evaluation of the competence of public officials, negative evaluation of the motives of public officials, and rejection of the institution of elections. (Author/AM)

The relationship between the media and public opinion concerning national elections is examined. Trends in public opinion and media emphasis were analyzed according to attention to political issues, ideological concepts, and party identification. A random sample of approximately 220 presidential election stories in the New York Times was taken for…

From the limited data, the authors are able to show that approval of incumbent performance is an important (but not sole) determinant of diffuse support for the institution. (Author/AM)

Converse's black-and-white model of attitude stability, in which there are some stable opinion holders and a group of nonopinion respondents whose positions vary over time, is supported. Relationships of education and political involvement to opinion holding suggest that respondents hold stable opinions on issues that are most important to them.…

The September report on the 36th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools did not go into the finer demographic distinctions that most polls explore. In this article, the author takes a closer look at the data to analyze how various subgroups of the population view the parties' and candidates' stances…

A study examined the source of important voter perceptions during the 1984 presidential election and their impact on the choice between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale--specifically perceptions involving the effects of either a Reagan or a Mondale victory on the American economy. The origins of these economic perceptions were sought in…

This study in contemporary campaign communications concentrates on a state-level legislative election in a western state. The candidate selected for analysis (anonymous) expressed his views on the campaign issues and the message he thought he was sending to voters. Voters were sampled to determine the issue- and non-issue-related messages that…

There is evidence of a growing trend toward ticket splitting, or independent voting patterns in all U.S. elections, especially in recent years. Independence of the electorate in 1972 was visible in the large Republican vote for President, during substantial voting for Democrats in Congress, and in gubernatorial elections. Analysis of mass media…

New Mexico's Hispanos have long participated actively in every facet of state politics--party work, candidacy, office holding, and voting. Yet, they have not shared the political rewards commensurate with political importance in state politics. The 1974 election of Jerry Apodaca as New Mexico's twenty-third Governor marked only the third time, and…

To examine whether voting behavior is a good indicator of public opinion toward controversial issues such as nuclear power, a study was undertaken to assess the meaning of the defeat of Proposition 15 in California in June, 1976. Proposition 15 called for more stringent legislative regulation of the nuclear power industry. Specifically, the study…