The potential to manipulate public views arises in large part from the mechanisms people use to process information. In the information-rich North American environment, people have limited resources to cope with the demands of mastering all the data presented to them in the course of their day-to-day life. As a consequence, people develop coping strategies that enable them to function as well as they need to--directing their time and attention resources to processing information in the important areas of their lives and giving the less immediate or less vital concerns shorter shrift. These “cognitive misers” use short cuts or heuristics when asked to form opinions and judgments on issues. According to Roberts and Stalans (1997), studies suggest that an accessibility heuristic underlies the way in which people form responses to questions asked in polls. The notion of an availability heuristic suggests that people rely on what appear to be relevant considerations in their memory when answering questions. The high volume of media coverage of dominant American issue frames that stress punitive remedies to drug use could combine to make “get-tough” responses more accessible in most respondents’ memories and cause these views to be sampled more often. So while attitudes supporting punitive remedies are sampled more often it does not necessarily follow that public support for such strategies is unequivocal and absolute.

Similarly, respondents can use a representativeness heuristic to generalize the characteristics of a population from a small sample. Once again, media frames which provide a lot of information about a small minority of uncommon, sensational crimes or depict atypical characteristics of offenders--focussing disproportionate attention on one race, for instance--can distort people’s opinions about crime and justice, if they assume that the atypical examples they know about are representative of crime and criminals. Finally, research suggests that prior questions can also affect responses to subsequent questions in surveys (Roberts and Stalans 1997).

Zaller and Feldman (1992) suggest that people respond to pollsters from what they call a top of the head orientation. This model assumes that most people do not have pre-existing attitudes on a wide range of subjects. Instead, most individuals possess a series of autonomous and conflicting considerations about important issues. Survey question and format provide cues that help respondents retrieve information. For example, questions that simply reiterate the dominant issue frame by offering a simple choice between harsh and lenient punishment are more likely to recall to mind the evaluation criteria and remedies that have been proposed by the get-tough option. Questions that probe opinions on issues behind the banner headlines will tap into other less punitive values and evaluative criteria. Surveys do not just measure pre-existing public opinion--they also shape and mold it. Raising new considerations in direct proximity to a question, for example, affects responses by making consequences and implications of a particular choice salient (Zaller and Feldman 1992).

The task of moving public opinion is often depicted as a process of providing people with information until they convert from one crystallized position to another. The actual process, however, is far more fluid, ambiguous and complicated than the “conversion” model would allow. Facts as we know them seldom speak for themselves but are framed or contextualized for specific effect. Political actors mobilize support for their positions by relating their claims to a familiar frame of reference using rhetorical devices and cognitive structures (Nelson 2000). These frames act as organizing principles for attitude formation so that whatever selection of the facts gain access to the individual’s attention falls into familiar categories, thus circumventing the troublesome processes of inquiry or thought.

Finally, the message-bearer itself has an effect. As Marshall McLuhan pointed out decades ago, message and medium are intimately connected. Television’s concentrated visual images eschews, indeed makes impossible, literate and discursive modes of thought and argument. Instead, it heightens the importance and quasi-religious function of symbols at the expense of fact. Furthermore, as a commodity it favours discussion and ideas that are familiar enough to audiences to be marketed successfully so, instead of a conscientious debate of the various policy alternatives, audiences are subjected to a dreary repetition of the same frames and conclusions over and over again. Additionally, characters tend not to be complex or to be situated in a history. According to Cayley (1998), discussion of prison and its consequences on television tends to focus on its symbolic function rather than on its actual effects. And an important symbolic function of prisons and the other trappings of our criminal justice system is their capacity to stigmatize criminals. “The more the character of the outlaw is darkened, the more brightly the virtues of the law-abiding citizens shine. The prisoners becomes a scapegoat and his real being is eclipsed by the angers, resentments, and fears of the good citizens” (Cayley 1998:30).