People and Their Opinions Thinking Critically About Public Opinion

Utilizing both a critical thinking approach and a comparative perspective throughout the text, Sobel and Shiraev provide comprehensive coverage of public opinion while also teaching students the basic skills necessary for measurement, understanding, and interpretation. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, this text provides a unique and practical introduction to the field of public opinion. The book begins by "schooling" the reader in how to think critically and then helps students apply those techniques as they encounter the concepts of public opinion. The text also employs a comparative perspective, demonstrating the effect and nature of public opinion in other countries while also placing American public opinion in context. New to the Second Edition A focus on the debate about accuracy of polls and reliability of sampling in the "smartphone" era. This will include discussing issues of Internet surveys and problems and solutions to cell phone polling. More comparative examples of surveys from democratic countries. New data from the national presidential and congressional elections from 2008 to 2016. A new chapter on security and defense issues, including national security, surveillance and privacy in addition to the chapter on foreign policy. An increased attention to domestic policy issues, splitting economic issues off from social/moral issues and adding--along with gender, social class, ethnicity and religion--new explorations of the relations of youth, gender ID, and age to opinion. Strengthened pedagogy by introducing new review questions, debate boxes, 3-4 new diagrams for every chapter, and a visual review-diagram to conclude every chapter.

Eric Shiraev took his academic degrees at St. Petersburg University in Russia and completed a post-doctoral program at UCLA. He is an author, co-author, and co-editor of fourteen books and numerous publications in the fields of international relations, political psychology, Russian, cross-cultural, and comparative studies. He develops a distinct multi-disciplinary approach to government, social, and political behavior and emphasizes the role of identity and culture in politics and international relations. Besides his teaching and scholarly work, Eric Shiraev writes policy briefs and opinion essays for government, nongovernment organizations, and the media. Richard Sobel explores the relationships between citizens and governments as a Senior Research Associate in the Program in Psychiatry and the Law at Harvard Medical School, and a Senior Research Fellow and Policy Director at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research in Storrs, CT. His work includes the policy analysis of privacy and confidentiality issues, particularly on constitutional and political questions about governmental databanks and identification schemes. Previously, he was a Fellow at the Berkman Center on Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.