ABSTRACT
Public opinion is a concept that is difficult to define because it has roots in the concerns of a number of different of disciplines (Price, 1992). What, for example, is a public? What counts as an opinion? Can a group of people hold a single opinion? Fields of sociology, psychology, political science, political philosophy, polling, and communication all consider different aspects of the phenomenon referred to as public opinion. Graber (1982), though, provided a definition that is serviceable for communication scholars: Public opinion is “group consensus about matters of political concern which has developed in the wake of informed discussion” (p. 556).
