Common knowledge on historical vicissitudes of the notion of public opinion - article ; n°1 ; vol.1, pg 119-137

Paul Beaud

Description

Réseaux. The French journal of communication - Année 1993 - Volume 1 - Numéro 1 - Pages 119-137
Summary: This article makes a detour through anthropology and history in an attempt to clarify some of the meanings covered by the notion of public opinion. Rather than assigning to it an a priori definition, the author attempts to reconstitute the strata of meaning which remain embedded as much in the representations which society associates with the term as in the conceptualization which sociology or political science have tried to make from it.
19 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: RESEAUX-_THE_FRENCH_JOURNAL_OF_COMMUNICATION
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1993
• Nombre de lectures: 33
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Paul Beaud
Common knowledge on historical vicissitudes of the notion of
public opinion
In: Réseaux, 1993, volume 1 n°1. pp. 119-137.
Abstract
Summary: This article makes a detour through anthropology and history in an attempt to clarify some of the meanings covered by
the notion of public opinion. Rather than assigning to it an a priori definition, the author attempts to reconstitute the strata of
meaning which remain embedded as much in the representations which society associates with the term as in the
conceptualization which sociology or political science have tried to make from it.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Beaud Paul. Common knowledge on historical vicissitudes of the notion of public opinion. In: Réseaux, 1993, volume 1 n°1. pp.
119-137.
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/reso_0969-9864_1993_num_1_1_3274KNOWLEDGE COMMON
On historical vicissitudes of the notion of
public opinion
PaulBEAUD
Summary: This article makes a detour through anthropology and
history in an attempt to clarify some of the meanings covered by
the notion of public opinion. Rather than assigning to it an a
priori definition, the author attempts to reconstitute the strata of
meaning which remain embedded as much in the representations
which society associates with the term as in the conceptualization
which sociology or political science have tried to make from it.
I I У COMMON KNOWLEDGE
substitute a precise definition of qffen-
7 COMMON ttiche Meinung for the jargon of the bure
aucracy and mass media, sociology had
to accept '... the logical consequence
KNOWLEDGE which forced it to abandon this type of
category' (Habermas, 1986). The highly
respectable International Encyclopedia of
the Social Sciences, published in 1968,
affirmed: There is no generally accepted On the historical notion of public vicissitudes opinion of definition of 'public opinion' (quoted by
Noelle-Neumann, 1977), which in fact
meant that the definitions were so
numerous (more than fifty, according to
reputable authors) (Childs, 1965 is a
lways quoted as the source) that one could
not choose any single one. And to con
clude these warnings, let us call to mind
what Pierre Bourdieu clearly stated more
than twenty years ago: 'Public opinion Paul BEAUD
does not exist' (Bourdieu, 1972).
After so many authoritative opinions (we
could have added dozens of others), we
Opinion: from the Latin be tempted to stop there, to con
opinio: ЪеНеГ ; Opine: to clude with the establishment of this single
hold or express an opinion paradox of an expression which, it seems,
The dictionary has passed from the vocabulary of politi
cal philosophy to that of the social
sciences, and then to that most comIt is impossible to provide a stand
monly used and which the social sciences ardized definition of public opinion,
do not seem to want to recognize as being consequently, it is preferable, if
theirs - which does not however prevent possible, to avoid using the term ...'.
them from referring to it at every available This is not a recent recommendation, but
opportunity. Since its creation in 1937, a motion adopted by American political
the review The Public Opinion Quarterly scientists during a congress in 1924
consistently questioned the very basis of (quoted by Padioleau, 1981). George Ho
its own existence. Less than that could race Gallup, who was twenty-three years
make one choose other subjects for reflecold at the time, was perhaps present.
tion!
If the latter had the descendants we know
But sociologists well know that they canhim to have had, those of the other par
not capitulate just because the dimly perticipants at the congress were just as rich.
ceived truth by which, yesterday, they We shall thus limit ourselves to a few
struggled to explain everyday life is quotations. In 1953 Paul A. Palmer dared
today's common sense. This already presto affirm that the expression 'public opi
ents a problem to sociology, and sociology nion' was tending to disappear from Ger
all too often thinks it can resolve it by man sociological and political science
other 'common knowledge' of its own. treatises (Palmer, 1953). About ten years
later Jurgen Habermas returned to the Let us then start with the consideration
attack, affirming that, not being able to that public opinion is an invention of
121 PaulBEAUD
since no unshakeable rule any longer modem parliamentary democracies, irr
espective of whether it is considered as automatically regularizes interactions.
fiction or reality. Agreement exists; the And so we return to the point of departappearance of the notion public opinion is ure, that which creates the departure, historically linked to the disappearance of defines the object public opinion and absolute and hereditary power and every generates the categories which will permit thing that justifies a given social order, us to analyse it, legitimizing both the
whilst standing outside it. Opinion is by empirical practices of those counting who nature substitutive (Ozouf, 1987); it is the is for and who is against, and the most institution which replaces - in reality or ambitious of theories. As far as the latter ideologically - God and the king and are concerned we shall not contest here which implies the existence of a certain the heuristic virtues of the models built number of conditions and means, such as on such differentiation. We shall simply, publicity or the separation between the at first, try to add a supplementary phase private and public spheres. In other terms to the methodological process to which - notably those of Lefort and Kantorowicz, the elaboration of this ideal-type leads. which we shall paraphrase - in order for That is, that of the testing of categories public opinion to emerge, an omni created by a return to what, by comparipresence must be substituted by that
son, Implicitly or explicitly defines them, which is symbolized by The Two Bodies the counter-model of societies from 'be
of the King, (Kantorowicz, 1988), both fore*. Any reflection, any classification, mortal and immortal, which 'give sub based on a 'before' and an 'after' contains stance to society' (Lefort, 1966) and en thus' illthe risk of trading the 'always sure its transcendental permanence; before' illusion, in this usion for the 'never over-fullness must be replaced by a va case of a society whose aim is self-detecuum, that is, indétermination, history rmination and which has given itself the (Lefort, 1986). means to achieve it*. Before attaining this,
Thus, the conceptual device is set up and it is appropriate at least to look elsewhere
one can easily recognize in it other peri- to see if, in particular, it really is necess
odization, other divisions, the 'befores' ary and sufficient that someone (Rous
and 'afters', the 'withs' and 'withouts', seau, the philosophers of the Lumières or
the 1789 revolutionaries) name this spe- without which the social sciences seem
unable to think or evaluate. For example, cificicity in order for public opinion to
one can identify, without and with his become at least the object of sociological
tory, that typical differentiation which so attention. We shall attempt to do so by
getting rid of a priori definitions, with the easily permits one to classify societies, the
exception of that implied by a 'yes' or 'no' ones holistic and extrodetermined, where
tradition and the gods have an answer to and we shall need to consider how other
everything, the others individualistic and societies asked themselves and still ask
introdetermined, or even better, undeter themselves the question of the determinat
mined, where inter-subjectivity and a ion of collective action by negotiated con
rgumentation become a primary necessity, frontation of points of view, and that,
* I have borrowed this epistemological warning - the 'never before' and 'always thus' - from
Bourdieu, Chamboredon and Passeron (1968), as a reminder that the comparative approach is the
only one which can allow one to highlight breaks and continuity. It is in order to do so that we
shall first deal with public opinion here as a historic category, as Habermas advised (1968, p. 10),
(contd) but we shall also cross the barrier which he established when he wrote that one can only
talk of public opinion 'in a specific sense in England at the end of the 17th centry and in France
..." (ibid). in the 18th century COMMON KNOWLEDGE
broader still, of the concerted elaboration Mead risked explicitly using the term
of representations. which so many others in the same disci
pline systematically excluded from their
vocabulary only to, we shall see, take a
Polling in Papua continual interest in the same thing
eventually. Let us then briefly discuss Amongst the many empirical questions to some of the latter - and return to Mead which this notion of public opinion has shortly - but specify that we are doing given rise, there is one which has moti
nothing other than questioning indirectly, vated many American researchers, all by a few incursions into the field of anconvinced that it could not be asked els thropology, the historicist preconception ewhere than in a society corresponding to just mentioned. In fact it is not