138 CHAPTER 5|PUBLIC OPINION AND THE MEDIA
because of what the candidates have done but because the respondents’ opinions
are based on relatively little information and can shift according to very small
changes in what they know.^46The Accuracy of Public Opinion
Early theories of public opinion held that the average American’s opinions about
politics were incomplete at best and wildly inaccurate at worst. Modern theo-
ries have revised these conclusions. It is true that many Americans have signifi -
cant gaps in factual information, such as which party controls the House or the
Senate,^47 and routinely overestimate the amount of federal money spent on gov-
ernment programs such as foreign aid. However, rather than refl ecting ignorance,
these misperceptions often result from poor survey design or the respondents’
misinterpretation of survey questions.
Claims about health care reform are a good example. In a 2009 survey, 86 per-
cent of respondents said they had heard that reform legislation would create so-
called death panels. (The question asked about “government organizations that
will make decisions about who will and will not receive health services when they
are critically ill.”)^48 Moreover, 30 percent of these respondents believed these
claims about death panels, even though no such provision was included in any of
the health care reform proposals. How can we explain these fi ndings?
We can offer four explanations. (1) Many respondents likely had not thought
about the questions beforehand. When asked for an opinion as part of a sur-
vey, there was no time to do research or think things through, so the respon-
dents probably guessed, and a significant percentage said (guessed) that death
panels were part of the bill. (2) Incomplete or inaccurate responses to survey
questions may ref lect respondents’ unwillingness to admit they don’t know
about something: survey participants sometimes make up responses to avoid
appearing ill informed.^49 Thus, when asked about death panels and health care
reform, respondents might have affirmed that a link existed even if they knew
little about the actual proposals. (3) Because opinions are subject to inf lu-
ence by politicians and others, survey respondents might have mentioned
death panels because they formed their opinions after hearing certain public
figures denounce the health care reform plan in terms of possible death panels.
(4) Many supposed facts are “contested truths,” meaning that it is reasonable
for individuals to hold a range of views.^50 So respondents might have known
that the proposals did not contain a provision for death panels but answered in
the affirmative because they thought that the health care reforms might lead to
such panels in the future.
Such problems do not arise in all areas of public opinion. Respondents’ ability
to express specifi c opinions, as well as the accuracy of their opinions, rises if the
survey questions relate to their everyday life.^51 Thus the average American would
be more likely to have an accurate sense of the state of the economy or his own per-
sonal economic condition than of the situation in Afghanistan. Everyday life gives
us information about the economy; in contrast, we learn about Afghanistan only if
we take the time to gather information.