Public opinion theory (for school)

[mulebennett]

2p2, I turn to you for help. I'm taking a "public opinion research" class for school and I'm floundering on this midterm paper assignment. It's not due for a few weeks, but it requires that I do a few readings as well as read Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail 1972.

With that said, here's the assignment:
In a maximum of seven-pages, double-spaced not including references, consider the state of public opinion theory. Compare the 1972 primary races described by Hunter Thompson with the current race. In some cases there may be similarities, and in some cases there may be differences. It is very important to make the comparison in context of the public opinion theory readings we had done up to this point.

We also have this grid to analyze:


HELP POLITICS BOARD, I have no idea where to start! Any guidance at all would be unbelievably helpful.

[ALawPoker]

This assignment looks odd. (But I never took much poli sci, so maybe this is par for the.. curriculum.)

The big thing about red-blue as opposed to the others (last question) is, I guess, that it relates more to the results and thus has a more direct relationship with policy. Voters who are not necessarily Republican, Democrat, conservative, or liberal might play a decisive role in the result of the election, and that's represented by the red and blue.

But I have no idea if that's on the right track or not. This is sort of hard to help you with off the top of our heads without being in your class. There could be a lot of ways to answer some things, but it's hard to guess exactly what your professor/course is focusing on. But I am totally in favor of helping lazy people put things together, so hopefully it works out for you.

[NickMPK]

Did you read the works listed under the "authors" column? Because that would be where you want to start.

I haven't read the Thompson piece mentioned, so I have no ideas on that.

But as for #4 (red/blue), I think what the question is getting at is this:

Converse really discredited the idea that most of the public can accurately describe what is means to be liberal/conservative/ Democrat/Republican, or associate the parties with ideologies, or even describe their own beliefs beyond association with group interests.

The "affective" school says that people's political reasoning is triggered by their emotions (e.g. fear or excitement), and that when these emotions are triggered, their process of making political decisions changes. Some scholars think that these triggers make people better reasoners and other think it makes them worse, and this may be all dependent on context.

Given Converse's conclusions about ideology, it would seem that something other than dry liberal/conservative labels might be needed to more properly sort out the American voting public. Perhaps red/blue is the answer. The reason being that red/blue isn't just about ideological positions, it also describes culture and religion and attitudes toward all sorts of non-political things.

[mulebennett]

[ QUOTE ]
But I am totally in favor of helping lazy people put things together, so hopefully it works out for you.

[/ QUOTE ]

I go to class probably 90% of the time, but the professor goes on tangents about his kid running for hall monitor and doesn't stay on course with the curriculum, so it's really hard to follow.

[ALawPoker]

Ya, most professors suck at teaching. I didn't mean you were necessarily lazy, I just figured by looking for help here there was a decent chance of it. I was more making fun of myself, since I am (well, was) extremely lazy academically, and I thought maybe you were one of my flock.

[mulebennett]

Eh, mostly turning here because I'm not sure where to go. There's 13 kids in my class and maybe 6 of them show up each day. Hoping I'm in a bit of better shape after getting started in the right direction here.