1. Public Opinion When attempting to analyze the role of public opinion in the policy-making process, it is important to first establish a precise definition of the concept. This is accomplished by breaking public opinion into its components and defining first what is meant by public and second by opinion . Public - a collection of individuals who share a common attitude This definition suggests that there is no single public. The idea of the general public has very little use to us in the study of public opinion. Consider that, on any given issue [electoral or policy issues], the general public can be divided into: [1] an apathetic public - the collection of individuals who are not paying attention to the issue and who do not express their attitudes in any meaningful way; [2] an attentive public - the collection of individuals who are at least paying attention to the issue and who may express their attitudes in a meaningful way; and [3] a mobilizible public ( s ) - the collection of individuals who are paying attention to the issue and who do express their attitudes in a meaningful way. The relative sizes of the apathetic, attentive, and mobilizible publics vary according to the visibility of the issue. Generally, though, as the visibility of the issue diminishes, the size of the apathetic public increases and the sizes of the attentive and mobilizible publics decrease. The diagram on the left suggests the relative sizes of these publics on the most visible of all issues, presidential elections. In elections, the attentive and mobilizible publics are essentially the same. As issues decrease in visibility then, we would expect to observe the effect described above and illustrated in the diagram to the right. Presidential elections Some less visible issue Apathetic public Apathetic public Attentive/mobilizible public Attentive/mobilizible public Mobilizers [activists] Mobilizers [activists]