Justice

Public opinion can simply be defined as the beliefs and political attitudes expressed by ordinary citizens. It can be measured rather accurately through polls and surveys. The democratic ideas of popular sovereignty and majority rule imply that government policy should respond to the wishes of the citizens, at least in the long run. An important test of how well democracy is working, then, is how closely the government policy corresponds to public opinion. Political attitudes and beliefs are learnt by people through their families, peers, schools, and workplaces. They also respond to political events and the mass media.

The process by which people acquired their beliefs about human nature , their country, government which all together form a society's political culture. Their attitudes about government officials are referred by political socialization. The agent of socialization includes schools, families, and churches. Mass media is the means by which attitudes are conveyed to individuals in the society. The news media affects the people's attitudes by how they select and frame the stories they cover. Structural factors in the society, the economy, and the international system strongly affect public opinion. Opinions are differing according to races, religious, urban, social class, education level, gender, and age. Black peoples, Jews, city dwellers, women, and low Ð'-income people tend to be particularly liberal and democratic. While white Protestants, males, and wealthy people tend to be conservative and republican. Whether individuals' are fit to rule depends a great deal on quality public opinion. Some people do not know a lot of facts about and do not have well- worked out ideologies or highly stable policy preferences. Americans' trusts in governments and approval of the performance of political leaders have been declining. The publicÐ''s regard for government and political officials rebounded dramatically in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on united states. Political ideology in public opinion is a system of interrelated and coherently patterned beliefs and attitudes.

Individuals expressed opinion on issues tends to be unstable which means that the opinions of the public are taken as irrelevant issues. Collective public opinion of American is real and stable, and it takes account of available information. Most individuals strongly believe in freedom, economic liberty, capitalism, equality of opportunity, and democracy, but disagree on government role of fostering things. Economic liberals and conservatives disagree about economic regulation, taxes, government spending, and the need for safety nets for the