Opinion Expression

Elena Negrea-Busuioc, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania
elena.negrea@comunicare.ro

Opinion expression is the act of conveying one’s thoughts, beliefs, or judgements about a topic through words, actions, or other communication forms. It is a central concept in public opinion research, where different approaches vary in how they value public expression of opinions.

In the survey-based paradigm, opinion expression is primarily a methodological concern: to answer the questions in polls in an adequate manner, individuals must have knowledge of and understand the issue and be able to express an opinion on it. Much criticism of survey research targets the underlying assumption that respondents are informed and interested in the survey topic, while in fact people often answer survey questions even when they have no relevant opinion to give. Surveys often face criticism because people sometimes answer without having a genuine opinion, leading to ‘pseudo-opinions’ or ‘non-attitudes’, i.e., random, unstable responses rather than true, informed views.

Conversely, the deliberative paradigm places great emphasis on opinion expression. According to the public opinion as the product of a discursive interaction view, individual opinions do not count as public opinion unless they are publicly expressed. People’s willingness to express their opinion publicly depends on their perception of the public opinion climate – what views are majority or socially accepted. Factors that may influence public opinion expression: fear of isolation, perception of public support, differences in power and social status, social knowledge, issue awareness, habits and opportunities of opinion expression. Social media has dramatically increased opportunities for public opinion expression. While promoting easy access and inclusiveness, digital media has also allowed perceived anonymity, perceived discussion benefits, or incivility to influence opinion expression. Social media may be used to express unrepresentative, inauthentic, ambiguous, controversial, and polarising opinions. Expression-based research has been mainly criticised for lack of demographic representativeness and selective collection of opinion statements.

Keywords: deliberative paradigm, opinion expression, public opinion climate

Related Entries: Public Opinion, Judgement (1), Judgement (2), Anonymity

References:
Converse, P. E. (1974). Comment: The status of nonattitudes. American Political Science Review, 68(2), 650-660.
Crespi, I. (1997). The public opinion process: How the people speak. Routledge.
McGregor, S. C. (2019). Social media as public opinion: How journalists use social media to represent public opinion. Journalism, 20(8), 1070-1086.