Why do people think what they do about politics? That question fascinates me, perhaps now more than ever.
I study public opinion, but I’m not just interested in the way people respond to public opinion polls. I do research on the way people interpret and understand the world around them, including the political world.
Knowing how people make sense of the world around them goes a long way toward helping us understand the candidates they vote for and the responses they give in public opinion surveys.
Throughout my career, I have learned that a great way to study political understanding is to spend time listening to people talk to the people they normally talk to in the places they normally spend time. For many of my projects, I have invited myself into conversations among people living in the upper Midwest.
About a decade ago, I turned my attention to political understanding in Wisconsin. I was interested in the way our social-class identities, or our sense of where we are in terms of haves and have-nots, plays a role in making sense of public affairs.
I sampled 27 communities across the state and, with the help of UW Cooperative Extension educators, found groups of regulars meeting up in gas stations, diners, coffee shops and churches in these places.
After a year of inviting myself into these conversations, it was undeniable that in many of our smaller towns and rural places, I was hearing resentment toward our larger cities, especially Madison and Milwaukee.
People in these smaller places were telling me that they did not receive their fair share of attention, resources and respect from people making the decisions that affect their lives, such as people in government, the news media and industry.
This sentiment is not news to people who have lived in rural communities, but it is a perspective that had not been readily obvious in our public opinion polls.
After a year of inviting myself into these conversations, it was undeniable that in many of our smaller towns and rural places, I was hearing resentment toward our larger cities, especially Madison and Milwaukee.
Its relevance to politics in Wisconsin and in the nation in recent years has made it clear that when it comes to understanding the place of the public in our democracy, we need to listen. It is the duty of scholars like myself to take the time to go to where people are, to pull up a chair and ask them about their concerns.
I have focused most of my listening in recent years on rural communities in Wisconsin, but the sense of disconnect from government I have heard is evident in other places as well.
I am now working with other scholars here at UW-Madison and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to discover how we can listen to conversations and other streams of other communication, such social media interactions, to gain a fuller picture of the concerns of people in all types of communities across the country.
Katherine Cramer is a professor in the Department of Political Science. Her work focuses on how Americans make sense of politics. She is known for her innovative approach to studying public opinion, in which she invites herself into the conversations of groups of people to observe the way they understand public affairs.
Fueling Discovery
"Fueling Discovery" is a joint effort of the UW-Madison College of Letters & Science and the Wisconsin State Journal featuring faculty members wiring about their work in their own words. The effort was financed through sponsorships and gifts from alumni and friends.