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Information, Values, and Opinion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John Zaller
John Zaller
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Abstract

Past research has modeled mass opinion change as a two-step process involving reception of political communication and acceptance or rejection of that communication. I propose a two-message version of the reception-acceptance model, in which citizens are exposed to two opposing communication flows, either or both of which may affect their opinions. Variation over time in the relative intensity of the opposing communications, along with citizen differences in attention to politics and in political values, interact in the model to explain both cross-sectional patterns of mass opinion and opinion change across surveys. The model, which is applied to data on the Vietnam War, illuminates two research problems: how complex information flows diffuse through a mass audience and how this information shapes mass belief systems.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 85 , Issue 4 , December 1991 , pp. 1215 - 1237
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1991

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