Unit 2 (Ch. 11, 15, 16)

Question 1

What is public opinion?

Answer 1

How the public feels about a particular issue or set of issues at any given time

Question 2

How many people do national polls usually survey?

Answer 2

1500

Question 3

Define demography.

Answer 3

The composition of a particular human population, the study of statistics such as births, deaths, income, race, gender, etc.

Question 4

What is political socialization?

Answer 4

The process through which individuals acquire their political beliefs and values

Question 5

What affects political socialization?

Answer 5

Family, gender, peers, school, media, religion, region, race, and age

Question 6

How is public opinion measured?

Answer 6

Election results, personal contacts, media reporting, and polling

Question 7

What is political ideology?

Answer 7

The coherent set of values and beliefs about the purpose and scope of government held by groups and individuals

Question 8

How do we predict how people will vote?

Answer 8

Polling

Question 9

What are the most common polling methods?

Answer 9

Straw polls, exit polls, tracking polls, entrance polls, and push polls

Question 10

Which types of people are most likely to vote Democrat?

Answer 10

Unmarried women, Jewish people, middle class, cities, labor unions, younger voters

Question 11

Which types of people are most likely to vote Republican?

Answer 11

White males, elderly, suburbs, upper class, Mormons

Question 12

What do Conservatives believe in?

Answer 12

Limited government involvement, big government will infringe on personal and economic rights

Question 13

What do Liberals believe in?

Answer 13

Favor interventionist government, social services, and the protection of minorities, women, elderly, environment

Question 14

How do men and women differ on political issues?

Answer 14

Women tend to be more liberal and favor government assistance and limited military intervention

Question 15

Describe Literary Digest and the 1936 presidential election.

Answer 15

Predicted that Alfred M. Landon would beat FDR, but FDR won in a landslide vote
Inaccurately predicted the winner because it only asked automobile owners in a voluntary response straw poll too far in advance to the election

Question 16

Describe the outcome of the 1948 presidential election.

Answer 16

Gallup and other pollsters inaccurately predicted that Thomas E. Dewey would beat Harry S. Truman

Question 17

Who is George Gallup?

Answer 17

Founder of scientific polling methods and Gallup Poll

Question 18

What is the typical accepted sampling error range?

Answer 18

Plus or minus 3%

Question 19

Describe push polls.

Answer 19

Push polls have strongly worded questions that influence that respondent to answer in favor of the surveyor’s opinion

Question 20

Describe tracking polls.

Answer 20

Continuous polls that allow campaigns to track its daily changes in support

Question 21

Describe exit polls.

Answer 21

Polls that ask voters how they voted as the leave specific polling locations on Election Day

Question 22

What is intensity in context of polling?

Answer 22

How strongly someone feels about what they are responding to

Question 23

What is stability in context of polling?

Answer 23

How likely someone is to change their opinion

Question 24

What is relevance in context of polling?

Answer 24

How important an opinion is to the person who holds it

Question 25

What is Federalist #10?

Answer 25

James Madison’s essay about controlling the influence of special interests by decentralizing power, accomplished by dividing power between the federal, state, and local level

Question 26

What is an interest group?

Answer 26

A group that tries to influence public policy in a specific way

Question 27

What are the theories on how interest groups form?

Answer 27

Pluralist theory, disturbance theory, transaction theory, population ecology theory

Question 28

Define pluralist theory.

Answer 28

Political power is distributed among a wide variety of competing interest groups.

Question 29

Define disturbance theory.

Answer 29

Interest groups arise in opposition to upheavals in politics or in opposition to other groups

Question 30

Define transaction theory.

Answer 30

Public policies are the result of narrowly defined transactions between political actors

Question 31

Define population ecology theory.

Answer 31

The life of a political interest group is dependent on the people and resources available in the area

Question 32

What are the types of interest groups?

Answer 32

Public interest groups, economic interest groups, professional interest groups

Question 33

What are public interest groups?

Answer 33

Groups that look out for the well being of people, not just its members

Question 34

What are economic interest groups?

Answer 34

Groups that seek to make a profit and promote the financial benefit of its members

Question 35

What are professional interest groups?

Answer 35

Groups that seek to maintain standards of the profession, hold meetings, and publish journals

Question 36

How do SIGs influence public policy?

Answer 36

``` Increase the cost of public policy Grass roots Direct lobbying Coalition lobbying Litigation Going public Candidate recruitment/endorsement Getting out the vote Rating the candidate’s office Political action committees (PACs) ```

Question 37

What are amicus curiae briefs?

Answer 37

When a case that a group is interested but not involved in reaches the court, groups will file an amicus brief to inform the court of the group’s preference on the ruling

Question 38

How did Mancur Olson feel about special interest groups?

Answer 38

Individuals will not mobilize into groups Individuals are perfectly informed It makes little sense for people to join groups when they can reap the benefits without being a member, creating the “free rider” problem Small groups are more likely to form since social pressures make it harder to be free riders

Question 39

Define the “free rider” problem.

Answer 39

People refrain from joining special interest groups or unions because if the group wins the cause without them joining, they will still reap the benefit without having to be a member

Question 40

Describe the New York Times v. Supreme Court Case

Answer 40

The Nixon Administration tried to restrain the New York Times from publishing the “Pentagon Papers” on the grounds that it was a matter of national security. The Supreme Court ruled that because it did not pose any imminent danger the US, withholding the papers was in violation of the First Amendment

Question 41

What is the Telecommunications Act of 1996?

Answer 41

Resulted in merging of previously different kinds of media to form multimedia conglomerates like Time Warner Cable

Question 42

What is the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007?

Answer 42

Banned gifts to Congress and congressional staff Toughened disclosure requirements Increased the time limit set for an item to move from the Congressional floor to the private sector

Question 43

How does the government regulate the media?

Answer 43

Technical regulations, structural regulations, and content regulations

Question 44

What is the Federal Communications Act of 1934?

Answer 44

Created the FCC to regulate radio, television, telephone, telegraph, cable, and satellite communication

Question 45

What is yellow journalism?

Answer 45

Journalism that is full of overly sensationalized and exaggerated details and stories

Question 46

What is muckraking?

Answer 46

Journalism that is aimed to expose wrongdoings of a particular group or person

Question 47

How has organized labor changed in the last 50 years?

Answer 47

Power has dwindled due to the internal split of the labor unions and the shift of workers from manufacturing to white-collar jobs Power has declined also due to the free rider problem

Question 48

Who was the first president to effectively use radio?

Answer 48

Calvin Coolidge was the first to appear on the radio, but FDR was the first to regularly use it

Question 49

What is the Lobbying Disclosure Act?

Answer 49

Passed in 1995 Passed stricter lobbying regulations Required lobbying groups that were direct at members of Congress, congressional staff, or executive branch policymakers to register

Question 50

What is agenda setting?

Answer 50

The ability to influence what subjects become national-political issues