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Over the past century, opinion polls have come to pervade American politics. Despite their shortcomings, the notion prevails that polls broadly represent public sentiment. But do they? In Silent Voices, Adam Berinsky presents a provocative argument that the very process of collecting information on public preferences through surveys may bias our picture of those preferences. In particular, he focuses on the many respondents who say they "don't know" when asked for their views on the political issues of the day. Using opinion poll data collected over the past forty years, Berinsky takes an increasingly technical area of research--public opinion--and synthesizes recent findings in a coherent and accessible manner while building on this with his own findings. He moves from an in-depth treatment of how citizens approach the survey interview, to a discussion of how individuals come to form and then to express opinions on political matters in the context of such an interview, to an examination of public opinion in three broad policy areas--race, social welfare, and war. He concludes that "don't know" responses are often the result of a systematic process that serves to exclude particular interests from the realm of recognized public opinion. Thus surveys may then echo the inegalitarian shortcomings of other forms of political participation and even introduce new problems altogether

Aoki, A. L.; Nakanishi, D. T.: Asian Pacific Americans and the new minority politics. - S. 605-610. Lai, J. S.; Tam Cho, W. K.; Kim, T. P.; Takeda, O.: Asian-Pacific-American campaigns, elections, and elected officials. - S. 611-618. Geron, K.; Cruz, E. de la; Saito, L. T.; Singh, J.: Asian Pacific American's social movements and interest groups, S. 619-624. Pei-te Lien; Collet, C.; Wong, J.; Ramakrishnan, S. K.: Asian Pacific-American public opinion and political participation. - S. 625-630. Kim, C. J.; Lee, T.: Interracial politics: Asian American and other communities of color, S. 631-637. Watanabe, P. Y.: Global forces, foreign policy, and Asian Pacific Americans, S. 639-644

Over the past century, opinion polls have come to pervade American politics. Despite their shortcomings, the notion prevails that polls broadly represent public sentiment. But do they? In Silent Voices, Adam Berinsky presents a provocative argument that the very process of collecting information on public preferences through surveys may bias our picture of those preferences. In particular, he focuses on the many respondents who say they ""don't know"" when asked for their views on the political issues of the day. Using opinion poll data collected over the past forty years, Berinsky takes a

A large number of studies have been devoted to the impact of perceptions of opinion distributions on the expression of public opinion. In the present study, we propose that perceptions of opinion distributions have implications that go beyond influencing individual issue stances, also influencing respondents' willingness to engage in political activities. Specifically, we examine the link between opinion perceptions & two dimensions of political participation: participatory behavior involving public expression of opinion, & participatory behavior that does not involve the public expression of a person's opinion. Based on data collected as part of the 1996 American National Election Study, we examine the role that communication variables, group membership, attitude strength, & perceptions of public opinion play in predicting public & nonpublic forms of participation in the US. Implications for research in the areas of political participation & public opinion expression are outlined. 4 Tables, 2 Figures, 29 References. Adapted from the source document.