Interesting statistic on the health care reform bill...

According to a recent Rasmussen poll, most voters think they understand the health care reform legislation proposed by President Obama better than Congress does-- and about as well as the president himself. The national telephone survey finds that just 11% of voters say Congress understands the health care bill better than they do. Additionally, 30% of voters believe they understand the bill better than the president does. 

Click here for the full article, 

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/august_2009/voters_say_they_know_health_care_bill_better_than_congress

Healthcare Post

When I arrived home, I thought the below facebook status was fitting -- considering our discussion today. It's by a reporter I used to work with.

"feels like Jerry Springer might as well be hosting this health care reform town hall meeting. It's feisty! Watch @ 11:00."

Ashley's Healthcare Video

MSNBC's coverage of myths and healthcare coverage is very interesting. I'm surprised that they didn't deal with the fact that the White House's message impacts news coverage. As a news organiztion when criticizing the White House, I think it's also important to discuss the coverage you are able to air. The message the White House puts out, MSNBC covers. Also, Andrea Mitchell is stumbling off the top of the opinion poll. As a former TV journalist, it appeared to me she didn't really understand (or didn't go over) what she was even delivering.

Update on the article!!

I posted the wrong article and have fixed it on the blog but just wanted to put another post up-

the advertising article is this one:
Attitude-Behavior Consistency: The Impact of Product Trial Versus Advertising.Full Text Available By: Smith, Robert E.; Swinyard, William R.. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), Aug83, Vol. 20 Issue 3, p257-267,

Sorry for the confusion. I promise I won't ask any hard questions about this one since I'm getting the update here so late.

For those who do not know how to do LSU remote access

Click on this link and it explains how to access articles from an off-campus location. 

http://www.lib.lsu.edu/instruction/distance/offcampus.html

Formats

Hey guys...Can you post articles in HTML format instead of PDF. I am having a really hard time opening up the PDF's

Two more articles

Hi guys,

Here are the citations for two more articles for Monday:

Attitude-Behavior Consistency: The Impact of Product Trial Versus Advertising.Full Text Available By: Smith, Robert E.; Swinyard, William R.. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), Aug83, Vol. 20 Issue 3, p257-267,

Read this one after you read the Psychology of Attitudes article. While this is an advertising article, it has several implications for political communication that we can discuss Monday.


Quick, B. (2009, March). The Effects of Viewing Grey's Anatomy on Perceptions of Doctors and Patient Satisfaction. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(1), 38-55.

This is a fun article concerning the cultivation theory from the Eveland article. You may want to think of more examples of how this may be happening in society.

If you can't find these in the LSU database, email me and I can send them to you (emabry1@tigers.lsu.edu).

See you Monday!

Additional articles

I have attached three articles for this weeks topic, well actually one of the articles is not available through the internet so I have added it to the M drive folder for the week. Two of the articles, Bishop et. al (1980) and Converse (1964) are central tenets to the study of public opinion and are mentioned in the Zaller piece. While these are longer and more dated pieces, they are still extremely relevant. The other article is a more recent study of third-person effects and internet pornography. Rosanne informed me that pornography and its perceived effect was crucial to the development of third-person effect theory and Lee and Tamborini (2005) explore its perceived effect and internet censorship. Enjoy and have a great weekend!


http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2748428.pdf
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118645453/PDFSTART

Video: Myths hurting public opinion on health care

The following url is a video discussing how myths (some say perpetuated by the media) have dominated the discussion of health care reform. Polls have found that people do not understand policies within the health care reform bills and more importantly, have influenced how people perceive the reform (whether they support it or not). Emily and I thought that this was a great video on the complexities of public opinion, both in measurement and in attitude formation. Take a look when you get a chance and start thinking about how this relates to this weeks readings.

http://vodpod.com/watch/2077489-video-myths-hurting-public-opinion-on-health-care
Have a great weekend!

"Capt.Cosmo"

Fyi "Capt. Cosmo" is Amber Havens. I created a blog this summer and google automatically pulled in my nom de plume when I signed up for the MC 7005 blog.  Please visit my Electr-o-pura blog!

I use a nom de plume because in professional life I work within a pretty restrictive political climate. It is not kosher for me to freely express my personal opinions and interests on a media that is accessible by the public. Do you agree... or think that we live in a free society, therfore I should not have a fear of "punishment" for what I do outside of work?    

Discussion Leaders for Week 1

Not sure who the discussion leaders are this week (Ashley, I think I remember you telling me you were one of them), but I just finished reading the 'Positive Constructs of Public Opinion' article. Towards the end of the article, the author discusses disruptive effects of thought. Malcolm Gladwell goes into detail about this in his book Blink (even discussing the strawberry jam and dating partners examples that were mentioned in the reading). If you'd like, I have the audiobook and can give you the cd that talks specifically about those experiments...it's actually pretty interesting!

Syllabus

Click here to download the syllabus
To put up a document to share with the class, first post that document on the web somewhere, like Tigerbytes in your PAWS account. Then right-click the link to copy the url. Come back to this blog, click "New Post," type and then highlight the name of the document you want to link to, and then click the little icon above the text box that looks like the earth with a chain link above it. Paste your document's URL into the box that pops up.

Books

Most course readings will be made available electronically. There are 4 books, however, that you should buy or borrow ASAP. Amazon is having a "free 2-day shipping" sale on academic books. I have not ordered these books at the bookstore, but some or all of them may be available there. From Amazon, the books total just under $100.
Zaller
(Zaller is the first of the 4 books we will read. The electronic reading packet includes the first few chapters, in case shipping is delayed.)
Mutz
Delli Carpini & Keeter
Lewis-Beck et al

Welcome to MC 7005!

I'm looking forward to meeting you during the first day of class tomorrow! This blog acts like an online discussion group for Public Opinion and Public Affairs, for those times when you just can't wait for class to talk about the readings and the news.