Abstract
For the general public and for scientists, interpersonal political communication is highly important; however, surveys based on self-reports often lack satisfactory validity and reliability, because political talk is embedded in everyday conversations and thus hard to remember. Furthermore, different people are likely to ascribe different meanings to the term ‘politics’. The present paper aims to further our understanding of what people perceive or do not perceive as political. To determine the factors influencing the general public’s understanding of politics, we conducted a representative telephone survey among 804 citizens of a German city. The findings indicate that people’s classification of conversations as political is determined by the characteristics of the discussed issues. Furthermore, some respondents did not mention all conversations that might influence their political opinions and behavior. Nonetheless, the matter might be relevant for research when people are asked about their political conversation behavior.
©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- “It’s about politics, stupid!”: Common understandings of interpersonal political communication
- Media repertoires and discursive communities: Studying audiences in the multimedia age
- Women, sport and the media: Key elements at play in the shaping of the practice of women in sports journalism in Israel
- User comments about research findings: How conflictual information in online science journalistic articles influences laypeople’s understanding of scientific tentativeness
- Epistemological dimensions on screen: The role of television presentations in changing conceptions about the nature of knowledge and knowing
- Book Reviews
- M. Williamson: Celebrity: Capitalism and the making of fame
- B. Zelizer: What journalism could be
- G. Bolin: Media generations: Experience, identity and mediatised social change
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- “It’s about politics, stupid!”: Common understandings of interpersonal political communication
- Media repertoires and discursive communities: Studying audiences in the multimedia age
- Women, sport and the media: Key elements at play in the shaping of the practice of women in sports journalism in Israel
- User comments about research findings: How conflictual information in online science journalistic articles influences laypeople’s understanding of scientific tentativeness
- Epistemological dimensions on screen: The role of television presentations in changing conceptions about the nature of knowledge and knowing
- Book Reviews
- M. Williamson: Celebrity: Capitalism and the making of fame
- B. Zelizer: What journalism could be
- G. Bolin: Media generations: Experience, identity and mediatised social change