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When and how can researchers synthesize survey data with analyses of social media content to study public opinion, and when and how can social media data complement surveys to better inform researchers and policymakers? This paper explores how public opinions might differ between survey and social media platforms in terms of content and audience, focusing on the test case of opinions about autonomous vehicles. The paper first extends previous overviews comparing surveys and social media as measurement tools to include a broader range of survey types, including surveys that result from public deliberation, considering the dialogic characteristics of different social media, and the range of issue publics and marginalized voices that different surveys and social media forums can attract. It then compares findings and implications from analyses of public opinion about autonomous vehicles from traditional surveys, results of public deliberation, and analyses of Reddit posts, applying a newly developed computational text analysis tool. Findings demonstrate that social media analyses can both help researchers learn more about issues that are uncovered by surveys and also uncover opinions from subpopulations with specialized knowledge and unique orientations toward a subject. In light of these findings, we point to future directions on how researchers and policymakers can synthesize survey and social media data, and the corresponding data integration techniques, to study public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research examining partisan media effects uses individual differences in exposure to news sources to predict attitude change. In this paper, we improve upon this approach by using variations in cable news coverage to predict subsequent changes in viewer impressions of the candidates. This approach allows us to examine the distinct effects of in-party and out-party candidate coverage. Content analyses and survey data show that partisan media effects result from coverage of the opposition candidate, and not from coverage of the like-minded candidate. Specifically, during the 2008 presidential election, increased coverage of Obama (McCain) on Fox News (MSNBC) made viewers less favorable toward Obama (McCain). Meanwhile, coverage of McCain (Obama) on Fox News (MSNBC) had minimal effects on viewer impressions. These results suggest that media effects persist even during an era dominated by selective exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For decades, numerous surveys have asked Americans the “Most Important Problem” (MIP) question: “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” Global warming and the environment have rarely been cited by more than a small number of respondents in these surveys in recent years, which might seem to suggest that these have not been the most important issues to Americans. This paper explores the possibility that an additional method of assessing the public's priorities might support a different conclusion. Three experiments embedded in national surveys (two done via the Internet, the other done by telephone) show that when asked the traditional MIP question, respondents rarely mentioned global warming or the environment, but when other respondents were asked to identify the most serious problem that will face the world in the future if nothing is done to stop it, global warming and the environment were the most frequently mentioned problems. Furthermore, a large majority of Americans indicated that they wanted the federal government to devote substantial effort to combating problems that the world will face in the future if nothing is done to stop them. Thus, future surveys might include both versions of the MIP question to more fully document Americans’ priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Web surveys are becoming increasingly popular, as reflected in the growing research on web survey methodology (e.g., Couper 2000; Couper, Traugott, and Lamias 2001; Crawford, Couper, and Lamias 2001; Dillman and Bowker 2001; Dillman et al. 1998; Tourangeau, Couper, and Steiger 2001). Despite this spate of recent research, it is still not entirely clear if the techniques used to increase response rates in paper and telephone surveys will directly translate to web surveys. Yet understanding which techniques increase response rates in web surveys is increasingly important. Researchers are faced with decreasing response rates in surveys (Smith 1995; Steeh 1981), as well as increased competition with marketers and spammers on the Internet, for the cooperation of respondents (one recent study predicts that by 2006 e-mail users will receive over 1,400 spam messages per year [Tynan 2002]). Without such knowledge, web surveys may become less useful as a tool for survey research. Previous research on web surveys has focused on such areas as coverage and sampling error, effects of multiple follow-ups, controlling survey access, and survey appearance. Very little research has been conducted on how the process by which members of the sample are contacted affects the probability of response. In our review of the literature, we did not discover any studies examining aspects of the e-mail contact, with the exception of a study by Cook, Heath, and Thompson (2000). The meta-analysis of 68 web surveys by those researchers indicates that personalized contacts have a positive impact on response rates... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Findings from analyses presented in this paper, using data from a Roper survey, suggest that the role of attitudes toward homosexuals should be at the center of future explorations of the relationship between the media coverage of AIDS and public opinion. While the available data are limited, our analyses raise the possibility that anti-gay attitudes constrain the ability of the media to effectively communicate information about risk factors and how the disease is transmitted. Researchers need to explore the possibility that anti-gay attitudes stand between media information and public knowledge and public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of the U.S. Congress have demonstrated a substantial difference between the level of partisan polarization displayed by legislators’ votes and that shown in citizens’ survey responses about those votes. Perhaps public polarization would increase if citizens were more attentive to political debates in Congress. Using natural variation in citizens’ levels of political information, I show that citizens who are informed about the partisan alignment of issues have a preference distribution similar to that of Congress, even after the sample is reweighted to resemble the entire public in their political, social, and demographic characteristics via matching. In contrast, using a survey experiment, I show that cue and argument treatments only partially reduce the discrepancy between the views expressed by the public and the voting behavior of Congress on the same issues. Both experimental and observational studies have significant limitations for measuring counterfactuals involving public opinion, and so our understanding of the polarization gap remains unfortunately limited. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Much has been learned about why some citizens are tolerant and others are not. However, the subfield has not reached agreement as to how these attitudes ought to be measured, and at least three competing measurement approaches currently exist: (1) the fixed-group approach, championed by the General Social Survey; (2) the “least-liked” group approach, invented by Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus (1982); and (3) an approach focusing not on groups but on support for restrictive public policies (e.g., Davis 2007). Although a few measurement studies have been published, generally research in this subfield has shown little concern about how different dependent variables overlap (or do not overlap). Measurement issues thus stand as an important impediment to advancing our understanding of the causes and consequences of political intolerance. This article considers the connections between political intolerance and general support for civil liberties. Most generally, I discover that different measures seem to be measuring somewhat different constructs, and that researchers therefore should not assume that different aspects of tolerance and support for civil liberties are interchangeable. These findings have important substantive implications for democratic theory: general support for civil liberties seems to be a policy preference legitimately contested within democratic politics, whereas political intolerance is a form of exceptionalism in which the political freedoms of particular groups and ideologies are targeted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]