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Lawmakers considering controversial legislation mandating HPV vaccination for pre-teen girls will likely incorporate public sentiment into their decisions. Doing so may increase public perceptions of government legitimacy and procedural fairness, maximizing the effectiveness of the legal system. Yet, trusting public sentiment based on morality, emotion, and cognitive bias can lead to negative legal and social outcomes. This study analyzed 106 Internet blogs authored by community members to provide a better understanding of the rationale underlying public sentiment. Though enthusiastic supporters of the HPV vaccination were well represented, most bloggers in the current sample opposed this measure. Supporters of mandatory HPV vaccination were more likely than opponents to advance practical and logic-based commentary, whereas opponents were more likely than supporters to base their commentary on cognitive biases and justice principles. Further research is needed to determine the extent to which policymakers should adhere to public sentiment opposing or supporting mandatory HPV vaccination.

This chapter challenges perspectives that portray the European Commission as being insulated from public pressures. Rather it argues that internal Commission actors care about the wider public acceptability of their policy choices, in particular when the general politicization of European integration or the public salience of the particular regulatory initiatives. Statements of various Commission officials and empirical evidence from the case studies indicate that public pressure affects internal position formation rather directly under such conditions. Individual Directorates-General strategically postpone or adapt their positions in line with public sentiment, while internal conflict can be partly overcome by public commitment or the public support of internally contested positions. The findings show that the Commission is indeed responsive to public sentiment, while the strength of this mechanism varies over the analyzed policy areas.

This chapter focuses on the period between 1880 and 1930, known as the Age of Lynching, and describes the numerous lynchings during those years. The period from the end of Reconstruction until the end of the Depression is referred to as the age of lynching for several reasons because lynching assumed a new prominence and importance in American culture and became, in effect, a gauge of that culture. Lynching in America during this era was as much an issue in debates about foreign policy as it was in those about domestic politics, and social psychologists have traced it to revivalist religious sensibilities, displaced aggression, and the emergence of an authoritarian personality in the mob leaders. Thus, the age of lynching produced is an agency deeply representative of much unspoken public sentiment.

Chapter 5 describes how economic decline led to an ideological shift in America. Trump was good at promising things that resonated with the public’s discontent. This chapter shows how he did this, particularly insofar as his economic plan is concerned. This is a story about the rise of neoliberalism as the cure for what ailed Americans and the American economy. Neoliberal ideology is a conservative approach to policymaking that touts the virtues of small government, low taxes, less regulation, and reduced welfare spending. It involves a taken-for-granted paradigm—a set of assumptions—about how the economy works, as well as specific policy recommendations derived from it. It also involves a variety of public sentiments or values deeply rooted in American culture about the virtues of small government. These sentiments and others provided raw materials with which Trump effectively fabricated catchy frames to garner public support for his policy ideas.

This chapter describes how the Chicago Defender had already begun to sound the alarm about “a racial amusement problem.” As proof of “boisterousness and defiance of public sentiment,” the Defender described in great detail what it called an act of “Loud Talking in the Pekin.” The Pekin, a nationally famous race theater, had begun to create “mixed bills”; integrating live acts with the emergent and relatively more affordable mass-cultural amusement of “moving pictures.” Such mixed bills brought with them a more diversified audience and hence a more diversified approach to appropriate decorum in the theater.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview intended to summarize essential introductory information to help the reader consume the material provided throughout the remainder of the book. First, the authors review the history of firearms across numerous contexts, including military, law enforcement, corrections, civilian, and pop culture. They then outline the available statistics from various sources related to firearm ownership and use in the United States, as well as provide comparisons across states. Next, they set forth important foundational information about firearms. They then address issues related to the public sentiment and attitudes toward firearms, gun control, and related concepts. Finally, they review a wide range of Second Amendment and other firearm-related groups, including gun control, gun violence prevention, and antigun groups.

Dwivedi’s attempt to sway his public through verbal and visual rhetoric is the primary focus of Chapter 1. Resorting to scaremongering and sensationalism, Dwivedi issues a variety of warnings concerning the fate of Hindi via a series of satirical literary cartoons. His concepts for the cartoons convey a literary-visual narrative in which obstacles to Hindi loom large and, unless appropriate measures are taken, foretell its doom. Dwivedi reproaches self-serving editors, dated patrons, foolhardy critics, and pandering authors; he also identifies specific adversaries to Hindi’s advancement both within and outside his field of influence. The cartoons vividly convey Dwivedi’s vision of a disparate Hindi public riddled by threats and his preferred agenda for progress. They represent a pioneering experiment in influencing public literary sentiment via a multimedia rhetorical strategy and signal the beginning of a new era in which Hindi literature moves forward in direct collaboration with visual content.