Using Political Journalists’ Definitions of Public Opinion to Predict Source Use in Political News

Abstract

This study examined political journalists’ definitions of public opinion and how these definitions influence the structure of political news stories. After considering prior conceptualizations of public opinion, a scale of two distinct definitions of public opinion was created, consisting of the optimist’s and the pessimist’s definitions. Using a survey of political journalists in the United States, these public opinion definitions were significant predictors of the use of particular sources in political news stories. Importantly, the two definitions had opposite influences on the use of opinion polls, shedding light on the discrepancy in use and perception of poll results in political news.

Keywords:

• Journalists
• News Media
• Opinion Polls
• Public Opinion
• Source Use

Notes

^[1] Aggregation (r = .18), majoritarian (alpha was negative), discursive/consensual (r = .66), reification (α = .53)

^[2] O’Rourke and Hatcher (2013) recommended that a minimum of 100 participants be used for exploratory factor analysis, and Bryant and Yarnold (1995) suggested that the subjects-to-variables ratio be no less than 5. This study reaches both those benchmarks.

^[3] Secondary Scale Validation. To further justify the use of this scale, a secondary analysis was conducted. Students at a large mid-Atlantic university (N = 276) rated the same 10 items with regard to how well the phrase described public opinion from 1 (not at all well) to 7 (extremely well). These students were mostly women (60%), and ages ranged from 18 to 33 (M = 19.75, SD = 1.77). Using a similar exploratory factor analysis pattern, this sample yielded the same results. Like political journalists, undergraduate students were more likely to agree with the optimist’s definition (M = 4.28, SD = 0.92, α = .65) than the pessimist’s definition (M = 4.16, SD = 1.36, r = .47). These results strengthen the reliability and validity of the scale developed in this article.