Michel de Montaigne invented the phrase "general opinion" to refer to the desires, requirements, and thinking of the majority of the population, or the collective opinion of the people of a community or state on an issue or problem. Public sentiment is seen as an important component of today's democracy and is said to start from political parties, the media, and the government. This paper explores whether the mainstream consensus and popular sentiment in China are greatly influenced by Western consensus, with the United States having the largest influence.
The word Mainstream Consensus can be established by separating the two concepts. The term "mainstream" refers to well-known theories, traditions, or media culture. Consensus is referred to as an agreement. Therefore, mainstream consensus can be referred to as media agreement where the media is a source of portraying all the ideas, tradition or media’s culture. Media always has brought out all the ideas or information that concerns the public’s interest from the business news to the finance news. The public opinion is a very important and essential part of any society as every view is powerful and important.
Literature Review
Research on Public Opinion
Research is defined as an organized collection of data in an ordinary situation with the aim of getting answers to questions about a give sample and population. The tastes and information provided by the population selected is referred to as opinion polls and how they are related to other aspects. Public opinion research originated from America in the 1930s. Public opinion has become efficient and cost-effective because of the quick technological changes like the introduction of telephone ownership and uses of computers. Public opinion as researched is considered as a clash of group interest or an agreement through recurrent and institutional communication. The influence of opinion polling also entice attention from political parties as well as political groups as they are aware that opinion polling is valuable to promote their campaigns and interests.
Public Opinion Research in China
Chinese public opinion research has practiced a rapid growth in terms of numbers, scales and scope of topics. Official and semi-official research institutions had established wide research connections as they do research on groups under the State statistical Bureau and all-China Federation of Trade Unions. China Social Survey System (CSSS) was under the Chinese Economic System Reform Research Institute (ESRIC) and played a big role in exposing the feelings of the public in transformation. Since the 1990s, China has experienced a quick change of public opinion research where the public attitude as broadly studied as some topics like Communist Party are still constrained.
With the public opinion on its younger stage, it has shown great efficiency especially ESRIC. Three stages have evolved from the research of the development of mass attitudes. The stages include:
Stage 1: Lasted from October 1984 to 1995 which was pronounced as the national interest as a reply to the initiation of the urban reforms.
Stage 2: Took place in 1985 that perceived and aggregated disappointment.
Stage 3: took place after 1985 hat was both disappointed and interest arose (1989).
This research outcome gives a good source for considering the changing society under reforms.
Public Opinion Research and Chinese Political Studies
Research on Chinese politics has always been conquered by qualitative research before the 1990s. China’s political change since the transformations enticed various western scholars’ desire. Some researchers have organized and controlled semi-structured questionnaires to émigré Chinese in Hong Kong to obtain primary data about the livelihood in Chinese villages, cities and industries. Due to institutionalize linkage between public opinion and political policy is absent in non-democratic systems, most China observations based on collected information on political development and social changes. The quality of Chinese public opinion research that is always imposed by the expert’s lack of adequate training.
Public opinion research on Transitional China
After the transformation, China has witnessed many changes as an outcome of liberalization, modernization and internationalization as the transformation has opened doors for modern public opinion study and has led to a proliferation of many organizations in China. The process of liberalization began immediately after the Cultural Revolution to help eliminate the isolated thoughts among the persons especially among the government officials. Modernization too was the goal of the Chinese activists as from the late Qing Empire. In the transformation aim of the Chinese Communist Party, three aspects protruded. These aspects are:
Education Enhancement as the transformation helped cut down the number of the uneducated people even if the cost of higher education through Elementary education. A balanced education structure has progressively reinvented since the reform as many people had more chances to get education as more learning institutions like colleges, universities and evening schools had been started for the purpose of education.
Technology advancement as the experts surrendered the mainstream approach to develop economy and changed to intelligent talents. Most industries changed the old machineries, methodical innovations were highly encouraged, new skills were quickly introduced internationally and also increased training as most researchers were sent abroad to gain more knowledge. This new technology led to increased productivity and revenue generation.
Involvement in the increased attention to scientific management; due to increased competition in the China’s economic system, here, industries and business ventures were to pay attention to the market needs rather than organizing events in accordance to commanding from higher ups.
Recommendation
As an individual, I consider both the public opinion on mainstream census as the controller of the countries or states success. Each and every country in the world consists of experts, researchers, people holding high places in society alongside the citizens of the same country. Every individual has their own ideas as well as holding importance in the daily running of the country as every member needs the help of the other. For example, for politicians to be in high position; he needs the country’s citizens and the citizen need leaders too to guide them. Even if sometimes this leaders especially the politicians can have both a positive and also negative impacts on the citizens and the country, their opinion and the public’s opinion too is important.
Conclusion
The public opinion plays a very important role in every country as its opinion creates the concern of interest as it enables expression hence leading to transformation of a state. Without the public opinion, then the concerns of the same public cannot be known. This mainstream agreement helps in viewing both opinions from either party that is willing to express their satisfaction or complaints by displaying then in a public media that is accessed by both parties. Therefore every opinion counts as per the traditionists.
Bibliography
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Manion, Melanie. "Survey Research in the Study of Contemporary China: Learning From Local Samples". The China Quarterly, vol. 139, 1994: 741.
Splichal, Slavko. Public Opinion: Developments and Controversies in the Twentieth Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
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