Prayer in Public Schools: When Church and State Collide

Prayer and Bible reading in public schools have led to threemajor Supreme Court decisions and the introduction of numerousconstitutional amendments in the U.S. Congress which would permitvoluntary prayer in public schools or limit federal court jurisdiction.Public opinion polls beginning in 1964 have suggested widespreadsupport among the American public for prayer in public schools.Little is known, however, concerning the characteristics ofthose supporting and opposing prayer in public schools. Thisarticle addresses the school prayer issue through an analysisof three national surveys which were conducted in 1974. 1980.and 1982. Those favoring school prayer were found to be older,less educated, and socially, politically, and religiously conservative.Multivariate analysis revealed that the key predictor variableswere religious orthodoxy and religious salience, a finding whichmay stem from the observation that school prayer is both a politicaland a religious issue. Issue salience, congressional votingdecisions, and demographic characteristics of school prayeradvocates are considered as possible explanations for the failureof Congress to act in accord with public opinion.     

POLLING ON THE ISSUES PUBLIC OPINION AND THE NUCLEAR FREEZE

Throughout the first term of the Reagan administration, thenuclear freeze movement headlined the news and scored numerouspolitical victories. Hundreds of state and local governments,as well as the U.S. House of Representatives, passed resolutionsin support of the freeze. Public opinion polls played a majorrole in the debate, as the media and freeze advocates citednumerous polls indicating overwhelming public support for theinitiative. Yet a comprehensive and detailed examination ofnational polls reveals that public support for the freeze cameheavily qualified. While Americans expressed strong supportfor the basic concept of a freeze, they expressed doubts aboutthe possibility of a verifiable and balanced freeze agreement.Furthermore, the public doubted that the Soviet Union genuinelydesired such an agreement. Most surprisingly, the public didnot pay much attention to the debate. Few Americans claimedto know or care much about the freeze initiative, and fewerstill felt positively toward the political activists behindthe freeze.     

Changes in Americans’ Views of Prayer and Reading the Bible in Public Schools: Time Periods,Birth Cohorts,and Religious Traditions

I use repeated cross‐sectional survey data spanning the years 1974 to 2010 to examine changes in Americans’ views of prayer and reading the Bible in public schools. Results from logistic regression models show that support for prayer and reading the Bible in public schools was relatively high in the 1970s and that differences between evangelical Protestants and both Catholics and mainline Protestants grew from the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty‐first century. Hierarchical age‐period‐cohort models demonstrate that changes in support for school prayer are due to both period and birth cohort changes, that baby boom cohorts are relatively likely to oppose prayer and reading the Bible in school, and that growing differences in support for prayer and reading the Bible in school between evangelical Protestants and both Catholics and mainline Protestants are predominantly due to changes across birth cohorts. Although religious liberals and conservatives have become more alike in many ways, evangelical Protestants have diverged from affiliates of other major religious traditions in their support for prayer in public schools. These results are relevant to debates regarding the social impact of religious affiliation, generational differences, and Americans’ views of the role of religion in the public sphere.     

Examining Variance in Presidential Approval: The Case of FDR in World War II

Despite the substantive growth and increasing methodologicalsophistication of the presidential approval literature overthe last four decades, almost all analyses continue to focusexclusively on the mean of the approval distribution—thepercentage of Americans who approve of the president at a givenmoment. However, changes in the variance of popular supportfor the president may be as politically and substantively importantas shifts in the mean. To illustrate how a focus on variancecan enrich our understanding of changes in the president’spublic standing, this analysis examines the effects of the economyand World War II on the variance in popular support for FranklinD. Roosevelt. At the aggregate level, the study shows that highpeacetime unemployment and mounting casualties increased thevolatility of FDR’s standing among federal relief recipients,erstwhile his most consistent base of support. At the individuallevel, the analysis demonstrates that individuals with conflictingpartisan, economic, and war-related considerations for evaluatingthe president were more variable in their approval of Rooseveltthan were other respondents. Exporting a similar focus on varianceto other lines of research across the public opinion subfieldcould produce a richer understanding of the complex processesdriving opinion change over time.     

"Walking the Walk" of Public Service Motivation: Public Employees and Charitable Gifts of Time, Blood, and Money

Research generally indicates that public employees "talk thetalk," but do they also "walk the walk" of the public servicemotive (PSM)? Are public service employees more likely thanothers to engage in public service activities? The behavioralimplications of PSM are addressed by studying the involvementin charitable activities of public, nonprofit, and private workers.Using data from the 2002 General Social Survey, multivariatelogistic regression models are estimated to examine self-reportedgifts of time, blood, and money to charitable organizations.It is found that government employees are more likely to volunteerfor charity and to donate blood than for-profit employees are.Additionally, nonprofit workers are also more likely than theirfor-profit counterparts to volunteer. However, no differenceis found among public service and private employees in termsof individual philanthropy. These findings generally lend supportfor the hypothesis that PSM is more prominent in public servicethan in private organizations, especially as it pertains togovernment personnel.     

Parental Protest,Public Opinion,and War Termination: Israel's ‘Four Mothers’ Movement

Peace movements that challenge national security policies typically remain politically marginal. However, the unusual cases that evince causal linkages among grass-roots activism, public opinion shifts, and a government's decision to change policy suggest hypotheses about the sorts of organizational characteristics and political conditions that can increase movements' prospects for influence. This article considers the case of Israel's Four Mothers – Leaving Lebanon in Peace that in the late 1990s successfully sought to end Israel's war in southern Lebanon. The article adopts a political-mediation model of peace movement outcomes that draws on Giugni's (2004) model of movements' policy impact. It finds support for the idea that when grass-roots activists and their elite supporters among politicians and the media act jointly, they can exert influence on policy outcomes. Anti-war movements led by soldiers' family members may have particularly abilities to shift public opinion against the war so as to create political incentives for office-seekers to end it.     

Private Polls and Presidential Policymaking: Reagan as a Facilitator of Change

Did the Reagan administration disregard majority will when craftingits policy initiatives? Did it cater to a narrow partisan constituencyinstead? The answers to these questions will help with an assessmentof Jacobs and Shapiro’s (2000b) hypothesis that presidentssince the late 1970s have used private White House survey researchas a tool to manipulate or assuage centrist public opinion whilemeeting the policy demands of their partisan core supporters,resulting in a decline in presidential responsiveness to majoritywill. Using the actual surveys administered by Richard Wirthlin(Reagan’s pollster) between 1981 and 1983, this articlewill demonstrate the level of consistency between majority opinionon 129 policy issues and Reagan’s behavior through 1984,and it will explore the conditions under which the presidentwas more or less likely to respond to public preferences. Thedata reveal that the Reagan administration was constrained bythe popular will in predicable ways: if the policy issues wereabout domestic concerns, highly popular, and visible in themedia, then the administration acted in line with public preferencesmore than 70 percent of the time. Further, Reagan and his adviserswere selective in responding to party activists: they championedissues drawn from their conservative ideological agenda thatfit with the current tide in public opinion, while sidesteppingother issues dear to party activists that encountered strongmajority resistance. While I do not contest Jacobs and Shapiro’s(2000b) important observation that presidents often use surveyresearch to "craft talk" in an attempt to channel the publicdebate, the evidence here highlights how the president nonethelessremains constrained by the popular will, at least on domesticissues.     

'I've Seen Changes'

Abstract

This article examines the political efficacy and effectiveness of American Indian and Hispanic women leaders in New Mexico. Using qualitative data from personal interviews with 50 grassroots activists and public officials involved in state, local, and/or tribal politics, I address the following research questions: Do American Indian and Hispanic grassroots activists and public officials perceive themselves as politically efficacious? How do their perceptions of efficacy differ? How effective are these activists and officials at influencing public policy and politics in New Mexico? The findings indicate that there are greater similarities among grassroots activists and public officials, as well as among Native and Hispanic women leaders, than might be expected from readings of classic political science literature. More importantly, while the majority of the leaders feel personally efficacious, there is substantial evidence of their impact both at the organizational level and in the larger political arena of state, local, and tribal politics.     

How radical is radical?: Understanding the role of activists’ communication strategies on the formation of public attitude and evaluation

This study examined whether the public evaluated radical and moderate activists differently in terms of the activists’ communication strategies (i.e., protests, humiliation, and terrorism). Results found that participants were more likely to electronically spread information about the activists when the organizational stances are radical. Among the three communication strategies examined, participants evaluated activists’ protests most positively and were more likely to spread the information of activists via social media. Participants’ intent to donate to activists was also the highest when activists utilized protests, compared to humiliation and terrorism.     

Public opinion towards gambling and gambling regulation in Australia

In recent years, public opinion towards gambling has become a more important factor in shaping public policy. Using a national public opinion survey conducted in Australia in 2011, this paper examines public opinion towards gambling in general and towards the government regulation of gambling in particular. Australia is an important case study because of the internationally high prevalence of gambling among the public, combined with a strong regulatory framework. Public opinion is measured by a reduced form of a scale first developed in Britain. The results confirm the generally negative views that the public holds towards gambling, which have been found internationally. In addition, the Australian public is open to the introduction of further restrictions on gambling. Overall, the public views the liberalization of gambling as having moved as far as most citizens find acceptable; to meet public expectations, future policies need to address more adequately the negative social consequences associated with problem gambling.     

Identifying and Responding to Activist Publics: A Case Study

Activist groups are strategic publics because they constrain an organization's ability to accomplish its goals and mission. Activists create issues; they appeal to government, the courts, or media for litigation, regulation, or other forms of pressure. As a result, research on activism has become one of the most important domains of public relations research. I begin this article with the premise that public relations practitioners must develop sensitivity to activists, he able to identify activist publics before they become active, and develop communication strategies to foster mutual understanding with them. The results are reported of a case study of environmental activism against a multinational company working in the Central American country of Belize. The organization failed to identify activist publics at the beginning of its Belize project and made no attempt to communicate with them. The activists then went elsewhere for information and escalated overt pressure on the organization. Media coverage, however, had little effect on the activists because they had their own specialized communication networks and newsletter. The organization then used press agentry and public information models of public relations to counteract the activists; as a result, the pressure escalated. I also found evidence that the organization became more successful with activists when it used a symmetrical model of public relations during a radio debate.     

Building communities: The postmodern CSR practitioner as a dialectical activist-agent in India

This study examined the conceptualization of the postmodern public relations practitioner as an organizational activist who contributes to democratic processes in the context of community relations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India. Elite, in-depth conversations with 19 senior executives at 16 companies in India well known for their CSR initiatives revealed that practitioners appeared to be both organizational activists and agents. As organizational activists, they acknowledged the existence of diverse voices in local communities, interjected these voices into management discourse, situated decision-making in local contexts, identified tensors in the relationship between the corporation and its publics, and negotiated new meanings through dissensus. Paradoxically, as organizational agents, they used these participatory, open processes of dialogic communication to shape public opinion in favour of the organization, feeding modern organizations’ proclivity for consensus. While the findings of the study support the postmodern conceptualization of the public relations practitioner as an organizational activist in the context of CSR and community relations, the agent aspect of the activist-agent dialectic problematizes and complicates this conceptualization thus enhancing understandings of the postmodern practitioner who enacts CSR within a modernist framework and navigates the intricacies of the activist-agent dialectic in their daily performance of building community relations and enabling democratic processes.     

The elephant in the room: media ownership and political participation in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong’s open and law-abiding society, applying the political principle of “one country, two systems” presents a challenge to the Chinese government, particularly regarding its efforts to control media ownership. Focusing on the structure of media ownership in Hong Kong, this paper describes the ways in which the Internet – especially social media – has empowered activists and alternative media by providing a means of avoiding censorship and social control. This paper also describes the Chinese government’s use of political power and capital to censor and shape the media landscape in Hong Kong in order to dampen public interest in politics and influence public opinion. Finally, this paper attempts to identify potential solutions to this problem.     

Agenda building effects by 2008 presidential candidates on global media coverage and public opinion

Grounded in first and second level agenda building and agenda setting, the relationships among public relations, global media, and public opinion were explored in the context of the 2008 United States presidential election. Two candidates’ speeches, press releases, and foreign media coverage were analyzed and compared with global public opinion. The results showed that object salience (issue and candidate) relationships were found between public relations messages and global media coverage while affective attribute (tone) salience relationships were partially found among public relations messages, global media, and public opinion.     

Activism and the Limits of Symmetry: The Public Relations Battle Between Colorado GASP and Philip Morris

Litigation has forced tobacco companies like Philip Morris to disclose more than 7 million internal documents, including previously confidential public relations plans. We draw from this archive, as well as from activist materials, to demonstrate that, despite vigorous industry efforts to thwart them, activists in this case employed strategies of values advocacy and inoculation and capitalized on economic benefits to persuade publics. This watershed case poses continued challenges for the 2-way symmetrical or mixed-motive theoretical model of public relations. Accounting for public relations activism and understanding its voice in influencing contemporary public debate requires that scholars move beyond this widely accepted model that stresses compromise between activists and organizations. An alternative rhetorical theory of activist public relations is posited to account for groups that refuse to accommodate opponents.     

The Polls--Review: Public Opinion Research and Support for the Iraq War

Professors Peter Feaver, Christopher Gelpi, and Jason Reifler'stheory of the determinants of public support for war has receiveda great deal of attention among academics, journalists, andpolicymakers. They argue that support for war hinges on initialsupport for military action and the belief in the success ofthe war. In this review, we take a critical and constructiveview of their work, focusing on methodological concerns. Wediscuss the dependent variable used by the authors—individualcasualty tolerance—and argue that it is an insufficientmeasure of war support. We also make the case that their independentvariables of interest—initial support for war and evaluationof war success—may, in fact, be best understood as indicatorsof latent support for the war more generally. Finally, we discussthe need for more research into the determinants of supportfor war, focusing on core values and elite rhetoric as potentialvariables for continued and future study.     

Privileging an activist vs. a corporate view of public relations history in the U.S.

This article elaborates on the argument that the history of U.S. public relations has been distorted by the emphasis on corporate functions of public relations. The dominant corporate-centric view of U.S. public relations history often claim that public relations developed as a response to activists who attempted to interfere with business operations. That myopic, corporate-centric view has perpetuated a negative view of public relations as merely a tool of “big business”. In the past as well as the present, corporations have been learning from and co-opting activists’ innovative public relations techniques. By alternatively grounding U.S. public relations history in the works of activists, we open possibilities for re-imagining the field and legitimizing activists’ works as a positive, central component in public relations theory and research. We end by providing resources educators can utilize to teach a more balanced view of public relations history in the U.S.     

The political is the personal: women’s participation in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement

This article examines women’s lived experiences as new activists in social movements. Taiwanese women – many of them housewives – joined the Sunflower Movement, a large-scale protest against a trade pact with China, and a related anti-nuclear movement in 2014. This study demonstrates how new women activists’ everyday political practices mutually construct the public and private spheres in the Taiwanese context. By ‘making private public’, these new activists use discourses of citizenship and maternalism to connect politics to social issues and daily life. Public participation makes these women feel empowered, and their daily actions transform politics from a set of formal, institutionalized practices to a practical fact of everyday life. This research also challenges the reproduction of a rigid private/public division in previous feminist scholarship that regards family and childcare as a separate realm that hinders women’s public participation. In a marked break from past accounts, these women don’t separate their caring responsibilities from their political actions. By focusing on new activists’ political action in and through their family and childcare, this research calls into question scholarly discussions that view maternalism primarily as a public discourse for mobilizing women or a visual strategy for collective protest. By considering the disruptive potential of all acts of mothering, this study paints a more complex and nuanced picture of women and mothers as protesters and reveals how activist women’s actions in the family and private social networks can be a central part of maternalist strategies’ radical potential.     

Opinion Leaders: Is Anyone Following?

This paper describes an attempt to identify respondents whoseopinions change earlier than others. The Katz/Lazarsfeld opinionleadership questions were adapted for use in quarterly surveysconducted by telephone with national samples of adults. Between1975 and 1978, changes were detected in public attitudes towardsix government activities. Recent advisors (opinion leaders)changed from 3 to 14 quarters earlier than nonadvisors. Further,recent advisors within each of several demographic groups changedearlier than others in their group. In at least one case, recentadvisors among those with a high school education or less changedearlier than college-educated respondents.     

Rational praying: The economics of prayer

Prayer, both public and private, is prescribed by most religious traditions. Patterns of prayer are shown to conform to an economic theory of spiritual health. With regard to the frequency of prayer, wages are predicted to correlate negatively, education is predicted to correlate positively, environmental factors that are supportive of prayer are predicted to correlative positively, and the expected “price” for participation in religious activity (the tithe in Judaism and Christianity and the Zakat in Islam) is predicted to correlate negatively. Empirical tests find the predictions of the model are supported for females, but only partially supported for males.