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Issue Attitudes (issue + attitude)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	100%

Selected Abstracts

Party Identification, Issue Attitudes, and the Dynamics of Political Debate

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2010
Logan Dancey
This article investigates whether media coverage of elite debate surrounding an issue moderates the relationship between individual-level partisan identities and issue preferences. We posit that when the news media cover debate among partisan elites on a given issue, citizens update their party identities and issue attitudes. We test this proposition for a quartet of prominent issues debated during the first Clinton term: health care reform, welfare reform, gay rights, and affirmative action. Drawing on data from the Vanderbilt Television News Archives and the 1992-93-94-96 NES panel, we demonstrate that when partisan debate on an important issue receives extensive media coverage, partisanship systematically affects,and is affected by,issue attitudes. When the issue is not being contested, dynamic updating between party ties and issue attitudes ceases. [source]

Citizens' Perceptions of Ideological Bias in Research on Public Policy Controversies

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2009
Robert J. MacCoun
How do ordinary citizens react to new policy-relevant findings that they learn about from media mentions or word of mouth? We conducted an experiment embedded in a random-digit-dial (RDD) telephone survey of 1,050 California adults. Respondents heard a description of a hypothetical study on one of four politicized topics or a politically neutral topic (nutrition) and were asked to describe their reactions to the study's main finding. As in prior research, citizens were more skeptical when the findings contradicted their prior beliefs about the topic. But, we also found effects of partisanship and ideology even after controlling for specific issue attitudes. Citizens, especially those holding conservative beliefs, tended to attribute studies with liberal findings to the liberalism of the researcher, but citizens were less likely to attribute conservative findings to the conservatism of the researcher. [source]

Party Identification, Issue Attitudes, and the Dynamics of Political Debate

Value Choices and American Public Opinion

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2006
William G. Jacoby
Individual preferences among core values are widely believed to be an important determinant of political attitudes. However, several theoretical perspectives suggest that people experience difficulties making choices among values. This article uses data from the 1994 Multi-Investigator Study to test for hierarchical structure in citizens' value preferences. The empirical results show that most people make transitive choices among values and that their value preferences have an impact on subsequent issue attitudes. To the extent that citizens exhibit intransitive value choices and/or apparent difficulties in the "translation process" from value preferences to issue attitudes, it is due more to low levels of political sophistication than to the existence of value conflict. [source]

Changing Sides or Changing Minds?

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2006
Party Identification, Policy Preferences in the American Electorate
Scholars have long debated the individual-level relationship between partisanship and policy preferences. We argue that partisanship and issue attitudes cause changes in each other, but the pattern of influence varies systematically. Issue-based change in party identification should occur among individuals who are aware of party differences on an issue and find that issue to be salient. Individuals who are aware of party differences, but do not attach importance to the issue, should evidence party-based issue change. Those lacking awareness of party differences on an issue should show neither effect. We test our account by examining individuals' party identifications and their attitudes on abortion, government spending and provision of services, and government help for African Americans using the 1992-94-96 National Election Study panel study, finding strong support for our argument. We discuss the implications of our findings both for the microlevel study of party identification and the macrolevel analysis of partisan change. [source]