Page 138 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

POLITICS AND PUBLIC OPINION 111

on the issue. From this perspective, the public are the informed, the
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attentative, or the involved members of the society; the others, i.e. those
people who merely inhabit a geographical area, are simply the masses.
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The problem with this restrictive definition is that it prejudges the
question of public interest. In reality, in any society, on any particular
issue, there are large numbers who have no knowledge of the issue, no
opinions about it, and therefore no will on it. Thus, other attempts to
distinguish publics from crowds or masses focused on the idea that
divisions of opinion, the existence of debatable demands, were essential
characteristics of a public. The clash of contradictory opinions was
considered the crucial factor distinguishing a self-aware public reasoning
with others from a sentimentally united mass composed of anonymous
individuals who engage in very little interaction or communication. Thus,
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a public may be defined as a group of people who are confronted by an
issue, who are divided in the ideas as to how to meet the issue, and who
engage in discussion over the issue. Despite the complicated situation
regarding access to information, public discourse and democratic
attributes in general in post-war West Germany, this chapter adopts the
position that the then German population (people, populace, nation)
could be considered a public divided over the issue of how to reorganise
the post-war economy. Due to this public discourse over the controversy,
an opinion, defined as the acceptance of one among two or more
inconsistent views, which are capable of being accepted by a rational mind
as true, was formed.
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In order eventually to attain and assess public opinion, many
researchers, policymakers and journalists have suggested simply
aggregating individual opinions. This most common definition of public
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opinion serves as the justification for using representative surveys and
polls, i.e. interviewing randomly selected individuals across social groups,
to measure the will of the population; and, further, it resonates with the
structure of the popular election. Others argue that public opinion refers
to what the majority of individuals opine, say or think. In this context, it
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is important to distinguish between public opinion proper and opinion
that is voiced in public, i.e. popular or published opinion. According to
Tom Harrison, ‘public opinion is what you will say out loud to anyone. It
is an overt, and not necessarily candid, part of your private opinion.’ The
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communication scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, in introducing the
concept of ‘the spiral of silence’ that determined when opinions could
become public, defined public opinion as that ‘opinion which can be
voiced in public without fear of sanctions and upon which action in public
can be based.’ Derived from earlier views, as expounded by such
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philosophers as Locke, Hume, Rousseau and most explicitly de