William A. Gamson

The author studies how ordinary people conduct discussions on political subjects and how they respond to certain prompts by the discussion moderator. He is especially concerned with how they frame their arguments and which themes emerge as the participants discuss ”troubled industry”, ”affirmative action”, nuclear power and the Arab-Israel conflict.

I like the idea, but the end result is nondescript and uninteresting. The author writes that the participants build their arguments on personal experience, folk wisdom or information from news media, but he never seems the least bit interested in whether or not the arguments thus constructed have any validity at all. One of the aims stated at the outset of this book is to show that public opinion can be well-informed, but the author never makes any headway in that direction.

Although the author’s first-person observations have some methodological interest, I think there exist better books on public opinion than this one. I would recommend Collective Preferences in Democratic Society by Althaus.… (more)