ABSTRACT
For scholars of public opinion and mass behavior, the archetypal citizen is often conceptualized as an unmoored social isolate-an individual without a home, wrestling alone with the predispositions in her head and with a cascade of messages from the media and political elites. Yet the reality is quite different: citizens exist and make decisions “in place”—in neighborhoods, in schools, on the job. Such sites are defined, among other things, by the resources and opportunities they provide, the burdens they impose or relieve, and the social observations and interactions they facilitate. What citizens infer, learn, and experience in their physical environments may have consequences for their decision-making about politics. Surely, it is unrealistic to assume that these experiences have absolutely no bearing on politics; this is precisely the assumption implicit in too many studies of political behavior. We know relatively little about how the contexts in which individuals are situated shape politically relevant beliefs and opinions and, subsequently, behavior: What features of contexts matter? What are the mechanisms of contextual influence? What is the range of behaviors and attitudes affected? A full and compelling account of the political life of the mass public is impossible without greater attention to these questions.
