The Construction of Public Opinion in a Digital Age

'Poised to become a cornerstone in media and audience studies, Happer's book offers a ground-breaking model for understanding how demands for change are accommodated into systems of power.'> 'This elegantly written book offers an empirically rich examination of the media's influence on public opinion and social change in the context of public disaffection and a transformed media landscape.'>> Drawing on a decade of empirical research, this ambitious book demonstrates the role of demographics, identity groupings and socio-economic conditions in producing patterns in opinion. With an emphasis on the importance of language, value systems and differentiated media cultures - from BBC News to TikTok shorts - it offers new insights into whether age is replacing class as the key marker of political divisions. The construction of public opinion explores how new mechanisms for controlling thought and opinion limit the potential for social change - and how this might be resisted.