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This article presents the reply of the author to the comments made by professors Raymond A. Bauer and J.S. Coleman, on his article "On the Concept of Influence," published in March 1963 issue of the periodical "Public Opinion Quarterly." Professor Bauer has related the theoretical argument of the author's paper in an illuminating way to some of the problems, frames of reference, and data of opinion research with which both he and many of the readers of this issue of the Quarterly are certainly much more familiar than the author. He has thereby contributed importantly to making the main analysis the author has presented intelligible to many readers. Second, he has carefully elucidated one theoretical point that is especially important because of the emphasis Professor Coleman places on it. This is that the basic conceptual scheme with which the author has been working attempts consistently to think in terms of reciprocal interaction and not of a one-way schema of one actor "having an effect on" others. The author presents his views on three themes that Coleman refers to as blind alleys. The first of these is the assertion that money, power, and influence are essentially linguistic phenomena. The second is the classification of institutional components in an interaction system of the type dealt with. This again is an essential part of the frame of reference in which the analysis is placed. The third is the paradigm of ways of getting results.

In this article, the author presents his comments to the paper "On the Concept of Influence," by Talcott Pearson. The author confines his remarks to an expansion of what he takes to be the major thesis of this seminal paper. Communications in Western society is a transactional process, a major element in which is a widespread sense of trust. This notion, on the one hand, crystallizes a lot of what one has learned from communications research but have not fully articulated, and it adds, on the other hand, an ironic twist to the pervasive concern with "manipulation" and deception. For the author, the most novel insight offered by Parsons' paper is so simple that, once stated, it sounds trivial: Deception is based on trust. The Parsonian "channel variables" may seem like needless verbal distinctions. But if social scientists had firmly implanted in their skulls the distinction between affecting a man's intent and controlling his situation, much less nonsense would have been written about "brainwashing." The intention of this commentary is to reinforce the reader in the belief that it is worth the effort, and to encourage him to return to it for additional mulling.

This article introduces papers published in the March 1963 issue "Public Opinion Quarterly." Political opinion polling represents one of the most highly developed applied fields of the so-called "behavioral sciences." While manpower and financial expenditures for such research do not approximate those for mental health, they are indeed considerable. In the light of the difficulties of financing political campaigns, the totals spent for political research are especially noteworthy. Moreover, in terms of social and political policy, the scientific, professional, and moral issues involved in utilizing polls for political purposes present some of the most profound problems in the applied social sciences. Nevertheless, writing and discussion of these issues has been extraordinarily meager and limited. For a time the popular media contained intemperate outbursts against the use of polling. The main arguments were that polling threatened to transfer the mandate from the electorate at large to professional specialists, and that polling ran the risk of becoming a device for manipulating election results by controlled exposure of selected findings. With the institutionalization of public opinion polls by both national parties and many state and local groups in the U.S., as well as by political groups in Western Europe, these attacks have disappeared from the press. In the popular view, opinion polling has become another hazard for the democratic process and for election campaigners.

This paper is the earnest consideration of what students of international affairs have thought the role of public opinion is and should be in the international arena. It emphasizes the importance of raising the competence of the public in order to make it a vital force for supporting progress in international institutions and organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study indicates that public opinion formation tends in large part to be a product of the activation of previous experiences and attitudes. The controversy at the University of California, in Berkeley, California, over the requirement that all faculty members sign an oath affirming that they were not members of the communist party created an opportunity to study the opinion forming process in a comparatively closed environment. University students reacted to a crisis situation largely according to their group affiliations and other background characteristics. Students operating within the intellectual atmosphere of the university may react in more rational ways than the general population. Student members of underprivileged groups may be more inclined to make rational identifications between their own group and other groups under attack, an identification, which underprivileged groups outside the campus may not make. Attitudes toward academic freedom are related to the same variables, which influence attitude formation in other areas of life.

In Part I of this article (Spring Issue), Dr. and Mrs. Gabel analyzed the editorials, in ten Texas newspapers, dealing with selected national issues. In Part II they turn their attention to several key international issues. The ten newspapers studied (see Part I, Table I; and also Part II, Table I) "appear to be the dominant metropolitan newspaper influences of Texas." They have a combined circulation of nearly 1,000,000, and cover geographical areas representative of both industrial and agricultural divisions of the state. Eight are independently owned, while the Houston Press is part of the Scripps-Howard chain and the San Antonio Light is Hearst-owned. The period covered by the study is mainly early September through December 15, 1945, with a few additional editorials from the latter half of December, 1945. The technique of analysis includes (a) noting the frequency of comment, and (b) indicating the favor, disfavor or the lack of a position, together with something of the manner in which editorial positions were urged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the influence of social and technological changes since 1787 upon the role of public opinion in the U.S. and undertakes to appraise the role of public opinion today in the light of these changes. The history of the "degree of uniformity" is the history of an important and neglected idea in American politics. The role assigned to public opinion by various departments in the federal government is something vastly different from the part given to it by founding fathers. The American Revolution was an open manifestation of a desire for a responsible government, and implicit in this idea of responsible government was the idea of responsibility to influential public opinion. The new significance of public opinion is that public information can keep pace with the facts-and along with this transformation there has followed a broadening of the base of the political pyramid. The importance which has been attached to the power to control opinion within the past few years is a result of the increased number of persons whose opinion is politically consequential.

A vital weapon in the present struggle is censorship, intelligently handled and justly applied. Yet public misunderstanding of its function has often caused resentment. Censorship is a vital weapon in national armory. The present paper attempts to do is to play lightly around the notion of what the enemy wants to know and to point up the various ideas or remarks with a few illustrations devised for the occasion on the basis of real dispatches which have been intercepted. Public resentment of censorship grows out of two main facts, ignorance of what it is and a deep-seated misconception of its functions. In the U.S. censorship is honorably used for the purposes for which it was originally intended, that is, to prevent the dissemination of any information which conceivably might benefit the enemy and as a corollary to this, the subtracting from the air, from the cables and from the international mails of whatever he may be unwise enough to say that can be fitted into the jigsaw puzzle constructed of martial activities.

As Marvin E. Olsen points out in the preceding article, a number of studies of political alienation have shown it to be related to "negativism toward issues that are strongly supported by the majority of the community." In this paper the author attempts to test empirically the proposition that the proportion of protest votes in elections, especially referendum elections, varies directly with turnout. Because his findings do not support this proposition, based to a large extent on the alienated voter concept, he presents a revised statement of the concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on last minute changes in voting intention and its effects on public opinion in Australia. Errors in prediction on the part of public opinion surveys are usually ascribed to faulty sampling, unexpected turnout of voters, or changes in voting intention between the date of interviewing and the date of election. This article suggests that in certain types of elections last-minute changes may present a serious problem for forecasters. The article describes the predictions and the steps taken to trace the cause of errors. Political set-up in Australia has been described. The Australian Gallup Poll accurately predicted the vote for the House of Representatives and one of the referendums. It had discrepancies, however, of plus 8.6 per cent and minus 4.6 per cent on the other two referendums. All four predictions were based on interviews with the one cross-section of 2,027 people, a week before polling day. Voting in Australia is compulsory, so an unusual turnout of voters could not have caused an error.

This article discusses the public opinion of Italian people, their thinking about the U.S. and the possible Russian strategy in this country. The appointment of Socialist Pietro Nenni as Foreign Minister of Italy in October 1946, the conclusion of a new pact between the Socialists and the Communists, and the success of the Left in several municipal elections had been interpreted by many as steps toward that goal. Then, in January 1947, came the spectacular break between the pro-and the anti-Communist wings of the Socialist Party. Two new parties were formed--the "Italian Socialist Party," led by pro-Communist Pietro Nenni, and the "Socialist Party of the Italian Workers," headed by Giuseppe Saragat. Less than half the deputies followed Saragat, the rebel; but no one knows whether the members of the Socialist Party, and those three-odd million non-members who voted Socialist in June 1946, will divide the same way in the Fall elections.

Throughout the history of Brazil as an independent country, it has been dismantled by inter-regional strife and jealousy. The Vargas régime in Brazil, in its current context, is an exceptional reminder of the Italian Fascism up to the middle 1920s. Brazil is a reminiscent of a partially completed syndicalist structure that has dominated Europe during the era. It has witnessed the evolution of an elaborate apparatus of propaganda and censorship. The article presents a discussion on the effectiveness of the Brazilian system of opinion management. The Vargas régime has been motivated by both negative and positive considerations in its attempt to design popular opinion. On the negative side, the principal objective has been to prevent the expression and spread of ideas prejudicial to the maintenance of the régime. Due to the possibility of an organized opposition undermining its foundations, the régime has not allowed the development of such opposition. Positive objectives of the control system are associated chiefly with propaganda, insuring the internal security of the régime. The propaganda has been build up an active support for its leaders and their policies.

Children have very low levels of response stability on many questions commonly used in political socialization studies, particularly those measuring attitudes. This article incorporates evidence from a three-wave panel survey into a discussion of some possible causes of low stability. The findings suggest changes in the established methodology of substantive studies of children's attitudes and a reevaluation of the generalizations arising from these stud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies in the past have found substantial correspondence between the political beliefs of an "offspring" and a "parental" generation--a fact which has led many writers to locate the primary source of political socialization in the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article cohort analysis is used to study the impact of generations on changes in political behavior and to distinguish the effects of generations from those due to aging. Four variables from Survey Research Center polls conducted between 1952 and 1968 are examined. A generation effect is found to influence opinions on aid to education, but isolationism shows a generation effect and life-cycle (aging) effect predominating at different times. The expected importance of the life cycle for voter turnout is supported, but neither effect is found to influence party identification substantially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study challenges the theory that adult political behavior is little more than an elaboration of patterns rooted in childhood. It is based on evidence from 421 state legislators in 4 states and 129 city councilmen from 23 cities. Comparing and contrasting those who entered politics early and late, the authors conclude that political experiences in childhood and adolescence are less important titan more relevant and pressing demands in orienting office- holders to their jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Will increased knowledge produce greater agreement on foreign policy issues? Not necessarily, the authors state. It depends in part on a person's pre-existing attitudes and what the prevalent, "mainstream" policy is. The analysis of "enlightenment," mainstream, and cognitive consistency models with reference to opinion formation and knowledge is imaginative and provocative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a comment on the article "On the Concept of Influence," by Talcott Parsons. Parsons makes a fundamental distinction between influence in a Gemeinschaft relation, or between members of a collectivity oriented to the collectivity's goals, and those in a non-Gemeinschaft relation. The simplest way of putting this is that, in some situations, the influenced can assume that the influencer's goals are the same as his own, while in others the goals are different. Parsons' discussion of Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft influence intermixes with his discussion of four types of influence. The basic distinction he makes between influence where ends are shared involving action relevant to a common goal orientation and influence where ends are not often involving the allocation of scarce resources is quite important. He makes a serious mistake in identifying the first with political influence, while excluding the second from this area calling it fiduciary influence. Many, if not most, governmental decisions involve allocation of scarce resources. In continuing the analogy of influence to money, Parsons raises the question of whether influence can be considered a quantity subject to conservation, as money is often thought to be and in a strict sense is, at any moment of time. He then points out that there may be an expansion or contraction of money in circulation. There is a serious confusion here, for by relending its demand deposits a bank is not increasing the amount of money in the system. Its loans merely increase the velocity of the money's circulation through the system. In fact, by whatever proportion of its depositors' funds it fails to lend, it is decreasing the amount of money in circulation, that is, stopping the circulation of this portion of money.

Many of the fundamental ideas underlying studies of the effect of communications, persuasion, the shaping of attitudes, and the formation of voting intentions can be generalized in terms of a common idea: the concept of influence. The development of effective concepts of wide applicability, like establishing a formal garden in the wilderness, necessarily involves a great struggle to bring order out of obscurity and chaos, and a great deal of systematic planting and cultivation after the initial clearing and pruning have been done. The author makes it clear that phenomena analogous to deflation and inflation in the economic case should be found in the fields of power and influence as well. The article indicates the direction that deflationary trends would take in these fields. In the field of power it is toward progressively increasing reliance on strict authority and coercive sanctions, culminating in the threat and use of physical force. In the field of influence it is toward undermining the basis of trust in reputations and fiduciary responsibility through increasing questioning of broader loyalties and rising insistence on narrow in-groupism. Inflationary process, on the other hand, is, for influence, the extension of claims to authoritative diagnoses of situations that cannot be validated with solid information and, on the other hand, the declaration of praiseworthy intentions that will not be backed by actual commitments when occasion arises. Unfortunately, there is no space here to develop these themes as they deserve.

This article describes some prevailing public attitudes toward political communication as an instrument of foreign policy, and contrasts these attitudes with the approach to foreign propaganda that is suggested by social science research. It is argued that lack of widespread understanding of the capabilities and characteristics of propaganda has interfered with its use as an efficient foreign policy instrument. Social science research suggests that the principal target of propaganda should not be a mass of individuals whose attitudes are to be changed, but much more a set of groups and organizations that are to be assisted. This is not to say that the propagandist should be unconcerned with individual psychology. The opposite is the case. But he should think of individuals primarily as members or potential members of politically significant bodies. His task is to identify organizations that require certain types of information and then supply this to them. The information in question may not be political at all but its effects are likely to be political. He may be considered a persuader, in that he may ultimately affect attitudes, but it is more useful operationally to think of him as a purveyor of information that can be used to achieve both his goals and those of his audience. It should be apparent from the way the words "propaganda" and "propagandist" have been used in the article, that they are not intended to carry a pejorative connotation.

This article focuses on a paradox in the findings of public opinion research that those individuals who shift their political position from one election to another frequently have less information about the political situation and the issues than persons whose attitudes and positions remain relatively unchanged. The low level of public information about politics has been documented with monotony ever since sample survey techniques developed several decades ago. While most of the major investigations of voting behavior have converged on this finding in one vocabulary or another, the evidence mustered in support has not been striking. Of course any data would be disillusioning if one imagines that an electorate is definitively split into two portions, one made up of fairly informed voters who never shift parties, and the other of uninformed voters who account for any electoral change. Belief in the broad hypothesis has been stronger than actual evidence might warrant in part because of obvious measurement problems, all of which act in the direction of weakening positive results.

This article studies the voter attitude and behavior, especially that of the alienated voter. A public opinion study of those eligible to vote in the 1960 Democratic gubernatorial primary reveals an extremely high proportion of voters with a low sense of political efficacy. Forty-eight per cent of the respondents "agreed" with the statement, "Public officials in Massachusetts don't care what people like me think." Forty-seven per cent of the respondents disagreed with the statement, "The way people vote in Massachusetts is the main thing that decides how things are run in this state." Thirty-three per cent of the respondents disagreed with the statement, "Voting is the only way people can have any say about how things are run in Massachusetts." Forty-three per cent of the respondents agreed with the statement, "People like me don't have any say about what the state government does," while sixty-six per cent agreed that "Politics and government in Massachusetts seem so complicated that people like me can't understand it." At least one-fifth of those interviewed believed that the candidates were obligated to, and dominated by, small groups of self-interested contributors. These contributors are stereo-typed as buyers purchasing future political favors. They are alienated voters who believe that they are manipulated and exploited by forces that they cannot uproot or even influence. The feeling of being wrongfully excluded, powerless and cheated of one's political birthright is the essential component of political alienation.

This study is an attempt to explore the development of orientations to part of the political structure. It utilizes such dimensions as personal and performance qualities of U.S. President's role. It indicates that important developmental changes do take place and raises questions about the development of attachments to the political structure through the President and about the nature of the process of this political attachment and its antecedents in the family. Theoretical and research interests in the process of socialization of the young child in American society are typically concerned with the child's acquisition of age-appropriate behavior and their attitudes associated with it. This traditional emphasis on the learning of behavior and attitudes which can be immediately applied to the child's experience has left relatively unexplored the process of socialization in areas of life which are is regarded as age-inappropriate. The socialization of political attitudes and behavior is one such area that has been studied at the adult level but neglected as a theoretical and research concern in the study of children.

The complex of political attitudes that has commonly been designated "isolationism" appears outmoded in the modern world but persists in many variations. This article follows and examine some hypotheses that have been offered to explain isolationism. Isolationism has been a force in American politics since the founding of the nation, and despite lessons of the two world wars, it offers a substantial opinion still consider this country a geographical and cultural "island" that is being contaminated by contacts with other nations of the world. Of various factors responsible for isolationism is Republicanism-conservatism. However, rural and ethnic populations do play a part, and the party differences with respect to the index of isolationism. The isolationism is a Republican rather than a Midwestern phenomenon, for while Midwestern Republicans score an isolationist rating of 85.2, Democrats from that section rate only 14.8, which is not significantly greater than the non- Midwestern members of that party.

The exploration of outer space has already begun with rocket-launched instruments, as of December 1, 1960. Within this decade, human observers may also adventure above the Earth's atmosphere to inaugurate a period of space exploration. Unlike the discovery of gold in California, these events and possibilities have been taken quite calmly by the public. Nevertheless "space" will profoundly affect lives and opinions of all people from now on. Opinions held by many Americans regarding this first step into space were sometimes inconsistent and frequently illogical. Also, these opinions did not indicate unanimous psychological shock or national girding, as the press and many issue makers have insisted. It has become common place in several pages of this journal to acknowledge that the press and its readership are frequently not as one, and these data are submitted in part as one more attempt to shatter the myth to the contrary. Speculations should hammer home once again the need to take advantage of situations which allow carefully planned before after studies.

This article presents an analysis of the public opinion reactions to the development of space technology. It would include studies of elite reactions as general opinion reactions, and would trace interconnections between these level. The opinion reactions to recent developments in space technology have affected or may affect policies and politics of the major participants in the international political system. Popular opinion may be viewed as "latent policy." It not only indicates potential changes in public policy and the political elite, it is a most significant component of that public policy and must be understood and appreciated if a proper estimate of the meaning of that policy is to be made. Thus public opinion is a part of the "performance" meaning of an alliance. The alliance calls for a particular set of allocations of resources for military purposes, and a particular set of military deployments, public opinion may affect the magnitude of these allocations and deployments within ranges defined by terms of the alliance.

This article reports some of the results of a study conducted for the organization National Association of Science Writers to determine how people react to the presentation of science in the mass media, and compares them with results of other studies. Science has rapidly become a dominant factor in national life and international relations. It is represented at top levels in government and supported financially on a grand scale. Still, the public remains in relative ignorance about science, and popular attitudes are naive and unrealistic. Science covers the advent of antibiotics, polio vaccine, and the notion of adaptation energy. Science includes electronics and its results in altered patterns of communication and entertainment, automation, and shifting patterns of job demand. Fusion and fission have changed the nature of the international threat and also formed a new basis for international cooperation. Child rearing, education, and human relations are also affected by science and are in the same state of flux that describes much of the present scene.

Leaders often used all forms of art to mobilize public sentiments in favor of their ethics, as in the case of the French Revolution. During this dynamic period various propaganda techniques in use today were developed, and in some cases perfected to a degree not generally recognized. Successive revolutionary governments tried consciously and continuously, with all means at their disposal, to mould public opinion and to direct it into channels favorable to their policies and interests. Painting and sculpture were extensively used, but the greatest contribution of the revolutionary leaders to the art of propaganda lay in their development of the pageant or festival. In the absence of mass media, artists were able to reach and influence a large number of the population who were not otherwise accessible to propaganda. An account of activities of the most important artist of the Revolutionary decade has been published, but an overall survey of other significant aspects of art as propaganda during the French Revolution must still be made. It is the purpose of this article to contribute to the inauguration of such a synthesis by calling attention to some of the more important aspects of the problem on the basis of historical research.

There are several possible approaches to the study of these opinion-makers. One is the conventional historian's technique of gathering myriad facts about the subject, organizing this material into an acceptable pattern-topical, chronological, or both-and writing the most readable account the author's talents permit. Many great and important studies have employed just this procedure. But in recent decades this so-called anecdotal approach has been brought into question by a group of social scientists who deplore what they regard as a lack of objectivity inherent in the method. The conventional historian's area of discretion, they contend, is so vast that his selection of facts must be largely a subjective one. He is constantly harassed by questions of what to include and what to leave out; and how much one fact is worth as against another. All relevant data must then be tested against these points of reference.

Taking three steps forward and two back ward, the United States has created propaganda machinery in its State Department to interpret American life and policy to the rest of the world. This machinery is being operated under serious handicaps. Americans are suspicious of propaganda as an instrument of government, even when used by themselves, although they accept it in the form of advertising. They have had little experience with it and have been more concerned with guarding against propaganda than in developing affirmative policies for influencing world opinion. Finally, American life is so broad and varied that the propaganda charged with interpreting it is faced with an almost insuperable task. The U.S. government propaganda in peace or in war must be guided by people who are clear about the essential meaning of American life. Not only the official propagandists but the legislators and administrators who sanction them must have an assured belief that the American scheme of living gives a satisfying explanation of the world today and will continue to provide a rationale by which the problems of tomorrow's world can be successfully resolved.

The authors try to find out what a respondent's answer to a public opinion interviewer really means. To know this one must examine some of the assumptions behind opinion polling, and must also identify the different meanings which identical responses may have to different groups of people. Finally, one must find ways to relate these responses to character structure, if one has to attempt to predict political or other behavior. The authors test few assumptions, which underlie polling. The scientific study of public opinion is in the hands of neither the poll-takers nor the respondents: both are caught in an historical process, which has not only set the questions to be investigated but also the form of the answer. The authors attempt to describe some of the different ways people approach the problem of having and giving an opinion. While the article groups these different ways roughly according to class, the various types, the authors describe can probably be found, in varying degrees, in all classes. As one goes down the status ladder, one still finds an astonishingly high proportion of response on polls, both in permitting oneself to be interviewed and in having an opinion that can be fitted, without too much gerrymandering, into the dimensions of current polling work. Even the lower class participates in this "conversation between the classes." The authors probe if the elections change the things. Latent meaning may be understood if we grasp the socially structured interpersonal situation between poller and pollee, and search it for the residues, verbal and non-verbal, which flow in our haste we throw away.

The article focuses on the effectiveness of a motion picture trailer as election propaganda in Detroit, Michigan. Analysis of election returns for a municipal election in Detroit, Michigan indicates that one candidate benefited appreciably over his opponent through the showing of special motion picture trailers supporting his candidacy. The effectiveness of the trailer appeared to vary markedly, however, according to the ethnic and socio-economic background of the groups to which it was shown. Elections in Detroit, Michigan draws relatively few of the registered voters to the polls. This is particularly true of those elections held in odd-numbered years following state gubernatorial or national elections. The 1945 spring primary and spring election were no exception to the general rule. In fact, non-voting reached a new high point. Of the 814,806 persons registered as voters for the February 19th primary, only 60,688 or 7.4 per cent exercised their franchise. The situation improved only slightly in the April 2nd election. Some 86,045 turned out at the polls, comprising 11 per cent of the registered voters.

The article presents an opinion research and historical interpretation of elections. Presidential elections are a subject of immediate concern to historian and also to social scientists - particularly students of opinion research. Furthermore, public opinion research can assist in solving some of the problems of historians relative to elections by providing techniques for establishing trends in political opinions, evaluating the effects of specific leaders and communications on voting and determining the importance of campaign issues. Closer cooperation between the two disciplines can result in more meaningful history. When it comes to presidential elections, a variety of academic disciplines which generally manage to keep to their own bailiwicks suddenly find themselves sitting, perhaps somewhat uncomfortably, at the same table. To the historian an election is an important event in the endless stream of causes and effects - the preceding events which produced it and the subsequent events which it affects must be designated.

The article focuses on polling by experts with regard to current national and international problems. In addition to the well-known surveys of public opinion, there have been many specialized polls to ascertain the views of particular groups. One type of specialized survey is the polling of 'experts,' where the aim is to secure the most competent answers to questions, answers of persons best informed on the subject and best qualified by experience and study to serve as 'authorities.' Several sporadic efforts have been made over the past decade or two to sample the opinion of economists and of other social scientists on special issues - on the tariff, taxation, causes and consequences of war, etc. One difficulty with these has been that the respondents have been chosen simply because they were members of social science departments, professional societies, or the like, rather than because they are acknowledged specialists on the topic in question. Other polls have even more loosely taken intellectual leaders, and miscellaneous professional people.

This report describes the role of public opinion and propaganda in the Soviet Union. It reveals the startling degree of indoctrination and censorship that exists in the Soviet state. An ancient school of philosophy maintains that if a great tree should crash in a remote forest where there was no ear to hear it, its fall would be noiseless. Perhaps this same line of reasoning has led to the fallacy that because the Russian masses cannot make their views and opinions heard, there is no such thing as public opinion in the Soviet Union. The fact is that not only does public opinion exist in the Soviet Union but it is probably the object of more solicitude on the part of the Kremlin than any other aspect of Soviet life with the single exception of national defense and security. The misconception possibly arises from a tendency to confuse public expression of opinion with public opinion itself. Since the average Soviet citizen has little or no opportunity to express his views in the press or on the platform it is falsely assumed that public opinion is non-existent.

This article discusses the perception of Russians about the U.S. If people were to ask Ivan Petrov, Moscow, the Soviet Union's mythical man in the street, what he knows about the United States, people would be amazed, startled, and undoubtedly worried by his reply. This man is a constant reader of "Pravda," the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Soviet Union; once in a while he takes a look into some other Soviet publication. Since he can not afford to buy a radio, he and his wife get all their information from their newspaper. Some fellow-worker has told him there is an American magazine, "Amerika," being published in Moscow in the Russian language, but Ivan has never seen it; besides, he doesn't think the party official who, with his wife, shares the Petrov's room would approve of the idea of reading a foreign newspaper. Petrov may not know it, but the picture of America he gets day after day follows a consistent pattern that is the result of careful planning and propaganda, officially termed "guidance," at the top levels of the Pravda offices and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The foreign news always appears on the back pages of his newspaper, whose size varies between four and six pages.

WHAT variant types of operations and operators are covered by the term public relations? Are there questions of public interest in what public relations men do? Should public relations be viewed as a profession? If so, what paths should it take toward professionalism? These and related questions are discussed by a public relations man, who has had experience both in government and in private industry, with a view toward dispelling some of the current confusion surrounding this much abused term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE author, chief editor of the former Moscow Cable Desk, describes the activities of the OWI in transmitting daily a digest of news and background material to Russia during the war years. He assesses the effectiveness of this operation in piercing the "Moscow black-out" and reaching the Soviet leaders and Russian people with information about the United States. The subject matter is especially timely because of its current implications regarding (i) Russo-American understanding, now at low ebb; and (2) the State Department's projected program of informational activities, long hamstrung by Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A majority of American people think that Japan is essentially a war-loving nation and would like to impose on her a hard peace. According to a poll conducted in June 1944, by the National Opinion Research Center, 57% of the people in the U.S. feel that Japanese people will always want to go to war, 30% believe that Japanese people may not like war, but have shown they are too easily led into war by powerful leaders, and only 13% think that Japanese people do not like war and, if they could have the same chance as other peoples, would become good citizens of the world. But these figures represent American people as a whole. It is interesting, and may be significant, to contrast the reaction of a special group, the college and university professors of the U.S. A good indication of the attitude of American professors may be drawn from replies of 52 faculty committees in half states of the U.S. to a suggestive syllabus "The Postwar Treatment of Japan," issued by Universities Committee on Postwar International Problems.

The article discusses American people's opinion on the Soviet Union, as to how much they know about the country and what are their attitudes towards it. Their answers are based on recent polls providing basic reading for a realistic approach to American-Soviet Union relations, as of December 1, 1944. The whole American attitude towards the Soviet Union has, of course, been complicated by feelings about Communism and Communists. This attitude changed markedly after German invasion of the Soviet Union, but not until early 1942 did the number of those who said they could not make a choice between the two fall below 5%. Furthermore, in 1939 a question about what foreign-born nationals make the best American citizens brought so few mentions of the Soviet Union that they were not even specified in the listed totals. But they were specified as sixth in a listing of the foreign-born held to make the worst citizens.

In this article, the author focuses on his generation's search for a satisfying public opinion. On the whole, college students in the 1930s, confronted the world with a turtle-necked fatalism. Not so the intellectual minority of a dissenting idealistic group. Inevitably, the young intellectual of that period moved towards the left. To a more or less intransigent degree, as his nature dictated, he was inclined to lay ills of his times at the door of capitalism itself. Production for use rather than profit, an economy of abundance rather than scarcity, those were phrases that stuck in his mind. Reading endless examples of class exploitation between lines of his history texts, he became socialist by indignation. The more Utopian youthful idealists even envisioned a classless society, in which the conflict and strife would be limited to the higher planes of philosophy and aesthetics. This acute class consciousness harmonized well with a contempt for all values which were associated with the middle class-conformity, security, short-sightedness and pretentiousness.

Mexico is thinking things out rather than fighting them out was underlined not long ago by a foreign correspondent summarizing the 1943 summer elections as a moderate victory for the right in Mexican politics. A regularly recurring poll, the first candid and realistic attempt originating within the country to measure public opinion, is being sponsored by the weekly newsmagazine Tiempo. Results of surveys have appeared an average of once every five to six weeks since the establishment of the reinsta in 1942. Statistically or from the standpoint of technique, the poll cannot compare with Gallups or Ropers of North America. But the survey is important because it acknowledges the need for opinion analysis in one more democratic country, because it is the initial step in its field in Mexico, and because it is apparently an biased and a rare avis on Mexican, Central or South American political scene. Surveys of public opinion may, on the other hand, some day profoundly influence Latin America towards cleaner politics and free elections.

During a political campaign in a democratic country, newspapers beat the editorial drum for this candidate or that, the radio burdens itself with appeals from partisans who eclipse the time of favorite musical show, aspirants for office smile engagingly on movie audiences from the frame of a news reel. This is the way of political propaganda. The pattern is pretty well fixed in the U.S. Few Americans inquire whether other democratic countries have similar rituals. Few ask whether party propagandists are as well equipped to succeed on the political front as British or whether the political leaders can profit by observing others techniques. Types of political organization, the professional training and tenure of party propagandists, campaigns in the Great Britain are not the sporadic three or four months of enthusiasm prior to an election. Party propaganda in England is something that goes on all the time. British party propaganda is more effectively organized than the U.S. Under the Parliament Act of 1911 an election must take place once every five years.

This article presents a bibliography for books related to propaganda and promotional activities. Books included in the bibliography are: "The Permanent Revolution: The Total State in a World at War," by Sigmund Newman, "Psychology: The Third Dimension of War," by Carroll Cornelius Pratt, "National Socialism: Basic Principles, Their Application by the Nazi Party's Foreign Organization, and the Use of Germans Abroad for Nazi Aims," "Civilian Morale: Second Yearbook of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues," edited by Goodwin Watson, "The Red Army," by Michael Berchin and Eliahu Ben-Horin, "Strategic Materials in Hemisphere Defense," by Mary Stanley Hessel, W.J. Murphy and F.A. Hessel, "Sabotage: The Secret War Against America," by Albert E. Kahn and Michael Sayers, "Corporate Concentration and Public Policy," by Harry L. Purdy, Martin L. Lindahl and William A. Carter, "Democracy against Unemployment! An Analysis of the Major Problem of Post-War Planning," by William Henry Stead, "Economic Problems of War," by George A. Steiner.

This article focuses on the background of public opinion in Costa Rica. Costa Rica, a nation about the size of West Virginia, lies on the Central American mainland, between Panama and Nicaragua. The reaction of an individual to a new object in the social environment is dependent not merely upon the objective nature of that event but upon how the individual perceives it, what he relates it to in his previous experience, and what it means to him personally. To Costa Ricans, then, Pan-Americanism or Inter-Americanism is a real psychological fact, much more of a real fact than it is to people in the US. The future historian may find it surprising, though commendable, that the government of the U.S. has so earnestly promoted a doctrine of Pan-Americanism, for that doctrine does not flow so readily from the attitudes of the general public in this country as it may elsewhere. With respect to the Costa Ricans' stereotyped impressions about members of other nationalities, there is one point that is especially worth mentioning because of its pertinence to the possible training of Americans who go to work abroad.

This article presents a set of basic instructions for interviewers taking part in surveys conducted by the National Opinion Research Center. The field of public opinion measurement is comparatively new. Its purpose is to find out what the public thinks on a particular subject. The area selected in which to measure the attitude of the people may be as large as the U.S., as small as a single town. To determine what people think on certain topics, the National Opinion Research Center will send questionnaires to its staff of interviewers. Each interviewer is asked to make the number of interviews specified and return the completed quota within the time limit set. When the questionnaires reach headquarters, results are tabulated on mechanical punching and sorting machines, and analyzed. The basis of opinion research is that the views of a part of the population will faithfully reflect the views of the whole population provided that the part of the population interviewed is a truly representative sample of the whole. No interviews may be conducted over the phone. All must be personal. The use of friends to take the place of interviewers, or other substitutes, is not permitted. The interviewers are requested not to reveal their results, or a respondent's opinion, to anybody.

This article focuses on factors that make individuals good and poor judges for estimating public opinion from a small sample of opinion of groups. These factors are same regardless of whether it is knowledge or opinion that is being judged, and regardless of whether the judgment refers to the individual's immediate social group or to the public in general. A main determinant of the individual's judgment of a group is his own opinion or his own knowledge with respect to the item that is being judged. Members of minority groups tend to make larger errors in judging public opinion than do members of majority groups. The average error that an individual makes is a measure of his ability to judge public opinion. The best judges of public opinion do not seem to be more or less intelligent than the poorest judges. The fact that an individual is outstandingly intelligent does not imply that he will be a good judge of the public. This is an important fact to be taken into consideration in the selection of individuals for administrative positions. The evidence indicates that the best judges of public opinion tend to have slightly better adjusted personalities than the poorest judges.

Public opinion has strange and elusive qualities which have puzzled political science students for centuries. It is doubtful whether anyone in an ordinary lifetime could learn enough to arrive scientifically at as many sound judgments, as people hold with such great tenacity. Nevertheless, people go on forming their judgments, and at times even fighting for them. Government, ethics, opinions are pretty firmly based. Group opinion, formed without undue pressure and expressed with accuracy and frankness, is the very foundation of public opinion, and upon that many democratic institutions rest. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press and some of related rights one cherishes as fundamental. The problem is that people have allowed their ideas about these rights to remain static while the facts about them have greatly changed. Assembly and the press are less effective and influential than they were in shaping public opinion, and other new phases of life have taken their place. Radio broadcasts, syndicated columnists, and other devices now tell many things. In short, the tools of propaganda and the techniques available for making effective use of them have been modernized.

Progress in the technique of ascertaining states and trends of public opinion has revived interest in the question of representative versus direct democracy. The problem is that what is the proper role of public opinion in the U.S. system of government. This problem is by no means new, but needs to be reconsidered in the light, not only of improvements in polling techniques, but also in relation to the public policy demands and the capacities of the average man. The problem is to discuss the theoretical function of opinion as the book "The Federalist" states it. The central propositions to be argued here is that most modern discussions of the function of opinion do not face clearly certain fundamental issues, and that "The Federalist" can throw light on these issues, as well as assist in the formulation of a coherent, conservative theory of opinion. The article suggests that a frontal analysis of the function of public opinion in a revolutionary age is required. Modern writers, like authors of "The Federalist," never say that government rests entirely on opinion, or that government is justified wholly by the opinion of its citizens.

Cross-section surveys of public opinion are now being conducted continuously in five countries-the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, Australia and Sweden. Through these surveys it has become possible for the first time to measure and to report the views of the common man on the same issue at the same time in five nations of the globe with a combined population of nearly 200,000,000. Sampling surveys as a means of systematically discovering public opinion make no claim to perfection or infallibility. But through their development it has become possible to chart the main trends of public opinion in the five nations and to study the impact of war events on public thinking. The American Institute, oldest of the five, has been measuring and reporting American opinion for seven years. It receives its entire financial support from more than one hundred daily newspapers, of all shades of political belief.