Gilens, M. (2001) Political Ignorance and Collective Policy Preferences.

Not measuring policy preferences; merely political information levels.
raw policy facts have a significant influence on the public’s political judgments.
I show that:
(1) ignorance of policy-specific information leads many Americans to hold different views from those they would hold otherwise
(2) the effect of policy specific information is not adequately captured by the measures of general political knowledge used in previous research
(3) the effect of policy-specific ignorance is greatest for Americans with the highest levels of political knowledge. Rather than serve to dilute the influence of new information, general knowledge (and the cognitive capacities it reflects) appears to facilitate the incorporation of new policy-specific information into political judgments (379). The more political informed have somewhere to couch the information.

Methods: impute the hypothetical “fully informed” electorate (Bartels 1996; Delli Carpini & Keeter).
Data—3 kinds:
(1) measure of general political knowledge
(2) measure of policy specific information
(3) measure of policy prefs plausible

expanding the literature:
(1) assess the effect of “policy-specific ignorance” on the policy preferences of those who are deemed fully informed by the criteria of prior research.
(2) compare policy preferences expressed by respondents who were randomly chosen to receive specific political information to the preferences of a control group.
(3) ask how the effects of policy-specific information differs for respondents with different levels of political information. TWO ALTERNATIVES have been suggested. On the one hand, general political knowledge, and its correlates such as political interest and cognitive sophisticntion, may enhance individuals’ ability and motivation to respond to new policy-specific information (Delli Carpini & Keeter 1996). On the other hand, heneral political knowledge may provide a resource to resist the influence of new policy-specific information (Zaller 1992). And if both forces are at work we many find a curvilinear relationship between general political knowledge and the effect of policy specific information or not apparent relationship at all” (380).

Expected findings: much of what separates actual political preferences from hypothetical “enlightened preferences” is due to ignorance of specific policy-relevant facts, not a lack of general political knowledge or the cognitive skills or orientations that measures of general political information reflect” (380). And policy-specific information has a stronger influence on respondents who display higher levels of general political knowledge. (what does Bartels say about the effect of information on the vote choice of highly sophisticated?).

Policy specific information:
Crime & Foreign Aid (merely true false questions; not an issue of preferences—but do they influence policy preferences? What are the effects of policy specific information on policy preferences).

sarah's notes:

Policy specific information => opinion change
Method: surveys and survey-based experiments

Would political judgments change if people were more/fully informed?
Previous research:
-Give a representative group more information and see if their judgements change
-Impute preferences based on demographics and vary level of information, see if opinions differ
This research uses the second method, but with policy-specific knowledge as the variable instead of broad, general knowledge, with all respondents at high general knowledge level
Also use experiment that randomly gives some people policy information and others none, and test for differences in opinion.
Also, include general knowledge as a variable, and test effect of policy knowledge on those with high and low general knowledge

Conclusions:
1. general knowledge is an incomplete measure of knowledge neccesarry to form preferences
2. policy-specific ignorance has a greater effect on preferences than general knowledge
3. policy-specific knowledge has a greater effect on more knowledgeable ppl.

Survey: People who have high general knowledge are more likely to have policy-specific knowledge, but policy-specific knowledge is still widespread, especially for certain issues (crime rate, environmental policy under Reagan, budget to foreign aid).

Survey: Imputed preferences under full policy-specific and general knowledge produced different preferences than those observed. Fully informed opinion has a liberal tendency (when study is done during republican presidency)

Experiment: People who are given policy-specific information have different policy preferences matching predictions and changes in the survey situation.
Both methods have issues, but consistency between them gives validity to both.

In theory, more knowledgeable people may react more or less to policy-specific information. Less because they already probably know more and so each new piece of information has less effect. More because thy are better at incorporating new information and their preferences are more ideologically consistent, hence more apt to change in consistent ways.
People who had high general knowledge were more affected by policy-specific knowledge. Lowest knowledge category mostly unaffected by specific information.