Key Drivers of Public Opinion Formation

Factors Influencing Public Opinion

Environmental Factors

The most pervasive influence is the social environment: family, friends, neighborhood, place of work, church, or school. People usually adjust their attitudes to conform to those that are most prevalent in the social groups to which they belong.

The Mass Media

Newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet—including e-mail and blogs—are usually less influential than the social environment, but they are still significant, especially in affirming attitudes and opinions that are already established. The news media focus the public’s attention on certain personalities and issues, leading many people to form opinions about them. Government officials accordingly have noted that communications to them from the public tend to “follow the headlines.”

Interest Groups

Interest groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), religious groups, and labor unions (trade unions) cultivate the formation and spread of public opinion on issues of concern to their constituencies. These groups may be concerned with political, economic, or ideological issues, and most work through the mass media as well as by word of mouth. Some of the larger or more affluent interest groups around the world make use of advertising and public relations.

One increasingly popular tactic is the informal poll or straw vote. In this approach, groups ask their members and supporters to “vote”—usually by phone or via the Internet—in unsystematic “polls” of public opinion that are not carried out with proper sampling procedures. Multiple votes by supporters are often encouraged, and once the group releases its findings to credible media outlets, it claims legitimacy by citing the publication of its poll in a recognized newspaper or online news source.

Opinion Leaders and Influencers

Opinion leaders play a major role in defining popular issues and in influencing individual opinions regarding them. Political leaders in particular can turn a relatively unknown problem into a national issue if they decide to call attention to it in the media. One of the ways in which opinion leaders rally opinion and smooth out differences among those who are in basic agreement on a subject is by inventing symbols or slogans.