Introduction
The range of altitudes of the united population as illustrated by survey research does not always reflect the real situation on the ground. The experiments have shown that although there exist differences in the public opinions, the opinion polls conducted on the population is usually biased and fails to understate conservative opinion and also do not support republican party. Conservative critics argue that there exist white hostility towards the minority and the blacks in most of the opinion polls. The critics have also argued that opinion surveys sponsored by public media tend to be biased and inaccurate. Where the genuine results show differences in the altitude, there are genuine reasons. (Truman, 2004)
Explanation on the range of altitude
The critics of the polls claim that skewed samples fails to represent some kind of people as well as some point of view due to the difficulty in getting participants on telephone surveys since most American public are mostly under time pressures to attend to their work. These time pressures have increasingly risen in the recent past and therefore national opinion polls cannot be relied on as in the past because they tend to reflect range of altitude where it does not exist or fails to reflect the range where it exist.
For example, during the presidential campaigns in 1996 that involved President Clinton and the republican challenger Bob, Clinton’s lead was regularly overstated and the most probable reason for this is that, conservatives tend to refuse responding to polls especially those polls from media outlets because they consider them biased. Majority of media polls in 1996 campaigns were also found to be grievously misleading and did not only exaggerate Clinton’s lead but also reduced turnout of dispirited republicans.
Range in the altitude as reflected by the survey data also arise due to the cutting of too many corners by the national polls as argued by many scholars, because of the short period of time that the surveys are given in order to produce immediate results. This is in contrast to the rigorous surveys conducted by the university research centers. Reduction in the budget of the news media has also influenced a lot of methodological compromises together with the assumption that the media is using time-tested methods and therefore would always produce reliable measures of opinion and pretty good records in election forecasting. (Feltey, 1998)
Media usage, daily activities and how people feel toward others has a lot of influence on people’s altitude in shaping their political opinions and also how long the public are exposed to a particular survey. This is because most of the public are likely to change their altitude over time due to other factors like reading of the national budget which has a strong influence on the public depending on whether it is balanced or not. A balanced budget is interpreted that the republicans and the democrats are working together in solving problems. (Mueller, 2000)
How class position is linked to political opinions
Political views tend to differ between various regions due to lack of familiarity and contact between people of different classes from different regions like the more and less educated classes. The differences in views among the educated class tend to be lower than between the educated and non-educated classes. Classes that are formed along the lines of ethnicity and identities of religion have strong influence on public opinion in that, there is less difference in opinion between people with similar alternative identities like being a black, a catholic or a protestant suggesting that there exist completions among identities.
Economic status depending on the region where one has come from also significantly affect public opinion as shown by south and south west being more conservative in comparison to the upper Midwest and northeast. The residents of south being significantly poorer compared to the rest are relatively not liberal. (Connell, 2002)
Conclusion
Public opinions in the United States are significantly shaped by the range of altitude throughout the population and this is largely contributed by polls conducted through typical media which has a strong influence in gauging public opinion and the tabulated range of altitudes among the U.S population is not always a true reflection of the situation on the ground as it is sometimes contain errors. (Converse, 2007).
References
Converse E. (2007): American social attitude data source: Harvard University press.
Mueller E. (2000): War, president and public opinion: Wiley New York.
Connell R. (2002): political socialization in the American families: Public opinion quarterly.
Feltey K. (1998): toward authentic public participation in public administration: public administration review.
Truman D. (2004): the government process; political interest and public opinion: Knopf.