Essay About Public Opinion

The public opinion:

Public opinion holds an essential role in society. It mediates and accommodates social integration and social change. As a normative force it nurtures integration and stability. As a mechanism of aggregate foresight it paves the way to social and political change. Public opinion is thus a multidimensional phenomenon. In addition to its evaluative attitudinal fact, it comprises a strong normative component, a prospective informational one, and an expressive behavioral element (Shamir & Shamir, 2000). A fuller understanding of public opinion thus entails not only the tracking of the majority opinion, but also of the normative opinion - the opinion perceived to be the majority opinion. Similarly important are people’s expectations of future events and developments, as well as overt verbal symbolic and behavioral expressions of opinion.

Traditional Definitions of Public Opinion.
Traditional senses of “the public” include beliefs, attitudes, and opinions about the following:
• Affairs related to the state, the government, or broad social institutions.
• Something that is open and accessible to everyone.
• All the people who are affected by an event, policy, or decision. While “private” actions concern only those who participate in them, “public” actions affect both participants and the rest of the people either directly or indirectly.1
• Something that is of common concern.
• The public good, as opposed to the private interests of individuals who represent only a segment of the broader public.

Modern Definitions of Public Opinion.
The modern sense of public opinion is multi dimensional and has the following characteristics:
• It represents only one prevailing opinion among many possible ones.
• It tends to be transitory.
• It refers to the opinion that seems to be the most dominant, widespread, or popular, even though there will always be a plurality of existing public opinions.
• It relates to “action or readiness for action with regard to a given issue on the part of members of a public who are reacting in the expectation that others in the public are similarly oriented toward the same issue.”2
• It is jointly produced by the following: (a) elite opinion leaders who express and publish opinions, have access to media outlets and technologies, and have high degrees of social influence or institutional power; (b) statistical records, which represent and measure opinions collected through polls and surveys; and (c) people’s “quasi-statistical sense” of which opinions prevail in their social and media.

I THINK THAT Public opinion is very important for our lives everyday to the extent that it create changes in the way people conduct their activities. It helps society make a better judgement of situation that occur daily. The negative thought of public opinion helps us discover a more positive way to find our solutions. Public opinion gives an insight to what we don't notice or hardly notice happening in our society or in our very lives. the strength of public opinions put proper prospects in place. Sometimes it leaves room for individuals to think wisely and find solution to its problems. Public opinion exposes the ugly deeds of our day to day living and bring us to society to be examine and see where we stand.

Public opinion could also incite others. It could give way to someone acting disorderly in the society. Disorderly in such a way that could be against the norms of society, simply because of the revelation of the truth (ex: it could be a murder case that was not satisfactorily judged). Definitely, it is also negatively. In all God has given every man his or her sound mind to think and judge wisely. So, not all judgement is right. But extract the truth out of Public opinion to get to your right way and stick to the path.