In the study of voting behavior and representation in any democratic system, there is a relationship between the elite and the mass. Scholars’ perception on the elite is that it affects the attitudes and behavior of the mass. Elite opinion emerges using the accounts of priming persuasion and other theoretical accounts that establish the voting patterns. Recent research suggests that time analyses designed display public and elite opinion. Often the existence of elite consensus depicts an increase in polarization that affects mass opinion. When the elites agree on the issue of policy, it increases the level of political awareness. Political scientists estimate the effect of elite consensus and communication on the public opinion.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the influence of the elite on the mass has been a sticky situation (Hewstone et al. 102). The elite opinion largely affects some aspect of the individual opinion. The television news influences the priorities of people in different nations that lead to priming. Priming entails changes in the standards people use in making political choices. People can use what the elite stands for as a measure of priming hypotheses. Individuals use television news as a standard to evaluate the elite. Scientific research to test the theory of priming reveals that there is selective attentiveness. Individuals only notice specific features and tend to disregard the rest of the content (Gibson and Amanda 281). Individual are limited to the political affiliation of the elite, achievements, failures, competence and their integrity. Other themes checked by viewers include the elite religious affiliation, policies they advocate, and values that the elite propose or oppose in the society. For instance, Americans draw upon a convenient sample in their consideration of the elite. People have a tendency to solve problems using own values based on judgment. The judgments concerning the elite depend on the people’s knowledge regarding them. Americas treat the issue of tax monies primed on people as fair in respect to their own monies.
When Americans recall of their limited political knowledge, they treat any political news with less interest. When the political atmospheres change people’s mind will readily change. The sequential and the assemblage experiment reveal that as television news increases its coverage on specific problem viewers have a pre judgment on the elite performance more heavily. The television coverage on a particular problem can influence the mass on their decision to evaluate elite due to the projection (Hayes and Matt 833). In evaluating new information over the old information, it is unlikely people use the old opinion subjectively. Standards that people use to evaluate the elite changes with the news content on the television. Stories run by the newscasters serves as a yardstick for people to decide the performance of the elite. The more attention the television pays on a particular problem the more the viewers use it in their overall judgment.
The studies of persuasion mostly focus on the variation on the source of the information. This is because it affects the opinion of the mass and this can polarize the political party and the voting pattern (Oakes and Turner 295). Political scientist provides that there is a correlation between the elite communications on the opinion of the masses. The causal effect on the elite communication is due to failure to account on the unmeasured opinion. Estimating the elite communication has limitation on the cross sectional analysis of the observational data. Some studies on the political competition offer that various elite take office positions to maximize their share of votes. Any correlation between the mass and the elite depends on the public opinion on the elite policy positions.
Political science largely involves itself on the social forces that create divisions and increase the inter-group conflict. Political science has done very little to unite people that go above group boundaries. The American politics offers evidence that transcend group boundaries when judging the policy options (Dragojlovic 995). The social identity theories contend that people identify groups to deemphasize competition. These theories are relevant in politics where samples in use represent real life settings. Scientists in the recent past have a random sample to examine the effect of changing identity towards salient policies in the country (Skill and Wallace 247). Policies that concern racial issues and taxation affect the belief and the attitudes of the citizens. The making of salient positive attachment to a super ordinate identity can eliminate racial differences.
The social identity theory shows that individuals categorize people in groups that they belong. Social group identifies group psychological attributes of specific people in the group. Membership in a group entails individual social identity (Dragojlovic 1005). Some groups strive to achieve uniqueness that is positive in relation to other groups. In the occasion people feel pert of another group; this enables a positive impact towards the group. Temporal attachments tend to evaluate performance in a group and distribute rewards in a way to elevate the group. Social identity theory explains that people can adopt various identities and become salient. Biases and division tend to occur when people re categorize members of a shared in-group (Hayes and Matt 833). Collective social identity is better than single gains. This shows welfare of the group members.
Sub cultural pluralism can threaten the democracy of personal and group identities since this evokes powerful emotions that readily settled using other methods apart from negotiation (Skill and Wallace 247). The strong group identities give rise to permanent groups in the countries democratic affairs. The cultural formula of social relations suggests that individuals in groups choose their alliances for the betterment of the group. This entails a process of continuous identity negotiation to maintain stability and eventually group loyalty.
The group leader has to handle inter-group conflict to embrace everyone in the group and eliminate division. Embracing everyone in the group may be substantially challenging, especially considering that people always hold different thoughts concerning particular issues. This is due to the heterogeneous nature of human reasoning. Subjectivity is the factor at the center of group dynamics. Embracing the subjective thoughts of each and every individual may be impracticable, but the group leader ought to establish a central point, one that will appear appealing to all members within the group. This will steer the group to being more proactive and productive. The group leader should ensure all the divers opinions incorporated get the treatment of respect. Conflict occurs due to biases in the incorporation of some group member’s ideas and rejecting others. Group members must initiate discussion and consultation. This enables them to plan on the direction to address a certain problem enabling solidarity. Groups should generate acquaintances to enable interactions from the different backgrounds. This can enable the individual to share his or her own personal experiences for the well-being of the entire group.
Works Cited
Arendt, Florian. "Dose-Dependent Media Priming Effects Of Stereotypic Newspaper Articles On Implicit And Explicit Stereotypes." Journal of Communication 63.5 (2013): 830-851.
Dragojlovic, Nicolas Isak. "Priming and the Obama Effect on Public Evaluations of the United States."Political Psychology 32.6 (2011): 989-1006.
Gibson, James L., and Amanda Gouws. "Social Identities and Political Intolerance: Linkages within the South African Mass Public." American Journal of Political Science 44.2 (2000): 278-292.
Hayes, Danny, and Matt Guardino. "The Influence of Foreign Voices on U.S. Public Opinion." American Journal of Political Science 55.4 (2011): 831-851.
Hewstone, Miles, Frank Fincham, and Jos Jaspars. "Social Categorization and Similarity in Intergroup Behaviour: A Replication with 'Penalties'." European Journal of Social Psychology 11.1 (1981): 101-107.
Kettle, Keri L., and Gerald Häubl. "The Signature Effect: Signing Influences Consumption- Related Behavior by Priming Self-Identity." Journal of Consumer Research (2013): S301-S316
Oakes, P. J., and J. C. Turner. "Social Categorization And Intergroup Behavior: Does Minimal Intergroup Discrimination Make Social Identity More Positive?" European Journal of Social Psychology 10.3 (1980): 295-301.
Skill, T., and S. Wallace. "Family Interactions on Primetime Television: A Descriptive Analysis of Assertive Power Interactions." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 34.3 (1990): 243-262.
