From Public Opinion to Public Judgment

Daniel Yankelovich, Chairman of DYG, Inc. and WSY Consulting Group, Inc., has observed that the concept of "public opinion" evokes two very disparate images, depending on the circumstances. One is the image of a wild beast that must be controlled or kept calm. The other lends a mystical, almost divine status to public opinion--a vox populi that is equivalent to a vox dei. In fact, both images may be accurate: "Sometimes public opinion on a particular issue seems mindless and thoughtless and irresponsible; sometimes, on the same issue at a later point in time, public opinion seems almost uncannily right." What happens, Yankelovich suggests, is that "a quite orderly process of evolution occurs on some issues, whereby the incoherent, beastly roar evolves gradually into a coherent public voice--a genuine vox populi."

This ultimate, coherent public voice Yankelovich calls "public judgment," as distinguished from "raw" opinion. Moving toward public judgment is a complex, arduous process of sorting through and coming to terms with conflicting emotions, values, and interests that surround a given issue. It may be unrealistic to expect wisdom, but public judgment implies a deeper resolution than does the more common notion of a "well-informed" citizenry that journalists seem to embrace.

Yankelovich defines seven stages in the journey from raw opinion to public judgment:

  1. awareness,
  2. a sense of urgency or a demand for action,
  3. a search for solutions,
  4. reaction and resistance,
  5. wrestling with alternative choices,
  6. intellectual assent, or resolution at the cognitive level, and
  7. full resolution--moral, emotional, and intellectual.
The mass media often do an excellent job at the beginning of the process, by bringing issues to the public's attention and creating a sense of urgency about them. But then they often move on to the next issue, contributing little to the difficult process of working the problems through. Journalists traditionally present positions as adversarial--positions on issues like abortion or gun control, for example, that rarely correspond to the real views of most people. This style of presentation even retards progress, contributing to the gridlock that so often sets in when we try to grapple with these issues. In contrast, if journalists, especially reporters for the major news organizations, saw it as their job instead to explore the conflicting values surrounding an issue, then the mass media could become a useful forum for generating the actual process of public deliberation.

How far along the road to public judgment have we moved on the issue of violence? Not very far, judging from the evidence. Public opinion displays the inconsistency and "mushiness" that Yankelovich finds characteristic of raw opinion in the early stages. It is not even clear, as Moore observes, that we are all talking about the same phenomenon. Audiences of white men often equate violence with crime and look for ways to deter or incapacitate criminals. Women, on the other hand, are more apt to focus on domestic violence. Still other groups worry about the culture of violence and its effect on young people. Even on a specific issue, the public is likely to take inconsistent positions. Most people favor some sort of gun control for others, for example, but they want to preserve their own unfettered access to firearms to defend their homes and families.

Too often in public life, Yankelovich reminds us, we delegate the right of thoughtful deliberation to the leadership cadre: "Then the experts and leaders make up their minds, and they mount a PR campaign for the public--a few ads, a few speeches, a few meetings--and they are done with it." Advocacy campaigns can help raise public awareness or rally support behind proposed solutions, but launching them at this "mushy" stage of public opinion can produce a backlash that retards progress--as we have seen, according to Glazer, in the cases of child abuse and date rape. What we need to move the process along, Yankelovich suggests, is a mass communication strategy that helps the public understand the real complexities of the phenomenon, confront the conflicting values or interests that come into play in the search for solutions, and define a common ground that can become the basis for effective action. For example, televised roundtable discussions with journalists as facilitators and call-in shows or "town meetings" of the sort Bill Clinton used during his candidacy could be effective forums for public deliberation.

"This, I think, is what we all hope to learn about here: how mass communication shapes, for good or ill, society's ability to deal with its problems; gets issues on the public and governmental agenda; reinforces or alters norms now governing relationships and attitudes within the general population; and imparts specific information to specific individuals that changes the way those individuals behave."

Mark Moore
Daniel and Florence Guggenheim
Professor of Criminal Justice Policy and Management
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University