The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology)

Rating:
Summary: Measuring the Unmeasurable
Review: The effectiveness and accuracy of public opinion polls was always assumed, until this important and enlightening book. Zaller consolidates previous doubts about the very definitions of public opinion and how to measure it, and shows the shaky foundations of public opinion polls. In the fascinating early chapters of this book, we find that people's political opinions and poll responses are often distressingly inconsistent; with destabilizing effects from poll design, the ordering and language of questions, whether or not the person recently heard about the issues, and each person's level of ideology and receptiveness to ideas.

But this does not prove that people are uninformed, but that standard polling is woefully inadequate in measuring all of the idiosyncrasies of the human mind, and one's opinions on complicated political matters. This book gets off to a great start by illuminating such fallacies. The first few chapters are strong enough to earn this book accolades as a poli-sci landmark. But after proving that public opinion is perhaps unmeasurable (at least accurately), Zaller then spends the rest of the book measuring it himself anyway, with self-designed statistical models. However, it becomes difficult to tell whether he is using the results of his measurements to gain insight into actual public opinion, or merely to prove the viability of his own statistics.

By the middle of the book Zaller has embarked on a tedious and uninspiring academic exercise in statistical modeling that adds little to the points that were already made convincingly early on. Unnecessarily complex statistical equations are piled on mundanely, along with unenlightening charts and graphs. Like many other political science writers, Zaller has focused on pleasing his colleagues who are more likely to be impressed by repetitive evidence and windy statistics, while forgetting about the informed general reader who may just find the big-picture conclusions fascinating. That makes the majority of this book somewhat disappointing, rather like standing on a mountaintop on a cloudy day. You know the view (i.e. insights into the political knowledge of the masses) could be tremendous, if it wasn't obscured by clouds (i.e. academic tedium). True knowledge can be gained by disregarding the dusty science of this book and concentrating on the greater insights that lie beneath. [~doomsdayer520~]

Rating:
Summary: A must read for Political scientists
Review: Zaller's argues public opinion on issues is unreliable, primarily because elite sources of information provide competing or multiple considerations causing public opinon polls to measure whatever recent elite message an individual has stored in thier short term memory. A classic and important text. Zaller is not a straightforeward read, but lays out an important theory. The theory lacks focus on the use of core values and partisanship on public opinion; two important variables. Other than that it has held up to criticism for over a decade

Rating:
Summary: Useful but dense
Review: Zaller's book presents an interesting elite-driven model of public opinion, which essentially concludes that opinion polls are less than reliable and we should be skeptical of attempts to measure the public's attitudes. However, it is very dense, is chock-full of advanced statistics above the head of most political science graduate students, and therefore at the end of the day is somewhat unsatisfying.

If you need a primer on public opinion research, this isn't it. But if you want to read cutting-edge work, and you have a good grasp of statistics, dive in.