Sociology

• Activists, politicians, social media and traditional media may not accurately reflect the true amount of support for a claim
• Options to better understand public opinion


  • Informal responses (talking with others, representation in pop culture etc)
  • Formal feedback: polls, focus groups, interviews, etc
• Opinion polls


  Sets of questions designed to gauge public perceptions about a topic in the target population
• Good polls


  • Representative of the entire population, sample accurately effects diversity
• Polling methods


  • Mail
  • Phones
  • In person
  • Online
• Regular surveys like census or general social survey tend to be more accurate compared to polls from Pew and other firms but they take a lot longer to complete
• Focus Groups


  In-depth discussions with a small number of participants discussing a topic
• Focus Groups


  • Where polls and surveys can accurately describe simple and generalizable opinions or trends, focus groups add more depth in terms of why people feel the way they do about a problem
  • A good focus group avoids leading questions and provides space for all participant options
• Problems with measuring public opinions


  • Is the sample representative of the population?
  • Are questions able to accurately measure public opinion?
  • How generalizable is a single poll?
• Focus Groups


  • Generalizability
  • Dominant talkers in group
  • It is imperative that the moderator keeps everyone equally participating
  • Social norms surrounding politeness and disagreeability
  • People may feel pressure to remain silent when others voice opinions they disagree with
• Public Opinion may not accurately reflect what exists in data
• Folklore


  Information disseminated informally (among the people)
• Urban Legends


  Unverified stories about events that seem like they could be true
• Joke Cycles


  Sets of jokes that share a form or topic
• Joke Cycles often draw on unease surrounding the topic and can include stereotyping
• Claim: Humor allows the public to sympathize with victims of a social problem


  Counterclaim: Humor used to attack beliefs and claims of protests
• After 9/11 when anti-muslim sentiment grew, some muslim americans used comedy to address the issue
• Where a non-muslim comic likely couldn't succeed with jokes made by the members of axis, muslim comics could
• By playing with irony they could use the negative stereotype of muslims to call out the ridiculousness of how non-muslim society tends to react to them
• This practice can challenge stereotypes and recreate stereotypes
• Interpretation, who is understanding a joke correctly?
• Punching up or Punching down, is the joke making fun of people with more power or those facing more marginalization?
• Policymakers


  People who have the power to create or change policies
• Policymakers


  • Government: legislators, executives, judges/courts, government agencies
  • Businesses
  • Churches
  • Nonprofits
• Activists and social movement organizations rarely have the power of policymakers
• Policymakers and especially politicians deal with demands from numerous groups: donors, party members, NGO's, social movements, and voters
• Groups may have conflicting agendas
• Policymakers also need to build alliances to create or change policies. Most policymakers do not have the power to change laws or rules by themselves
• Enacting policies can be a long arduous task in terms of getting policy makers to respond to issues positively and work to get changes formally enacted, solutions will not be implemented overnight
• Elite/Conflict theory


  Takes a critical perspective to argue that policies are more likely to emerge if elites and those with more resources support a policy
• Pluralist theory


  Shows how multiple voices have avenues to change policy despite numerous forms of social stratification
• Policy Stream Model


  • Problem Recognition Stream: Public awareness of a social problem
  • Policy Proposal Stream: Specific proposals for new legislation
  • Political Stream: The larger political situation of the location of the social problem
• While it is very difficult for a single stream to enact policy, the Policy Stream model is a pluralist theory but we can see how some elements of stratification can affect the likelihood of policy being enacted
• Problem Recognition Stream


  Public awareness of a social problem, activists, media, and experts all play a role
• Policy Proposal Stream


  Specific proposals for new legislation, while dominated by legislators, NGOs and other groups can build their own policy proposals
• Political Stream


  The larger political situation of the location of the social problem, what parties are in power? Which politicians have the most influence? What lobbyists or other interest groups have strong relationships with these powerful people and groups?
• Social Problems Work


  The work done by social problems workers to address social issues
• Two groups, social problems workers and subjects, may find themselves at odds or just misunderstanding one another
• Subjects are often experiencing the problem through an individualized lens, what they face is unique to them
• Social problems workers see the same problems repeatedly, and on top of pressures mentioned before, they must also deal with caseloads per day, reports due, etc