Abstract

Although experts in the United States are often criticized as being “out of touch” for failing to understand the political views of average Americans, arguably no group has been more susceptible to this charge than the media. In this article, we exploit unique paired surveys to measure how accurately US foreign policy media experts assess public opinion compared to other foreign policy experts on the critical issue of American engagement in the world. We find that while experts, on average, substantially underestimate how favorable US citizens are toward international engagement, the media is more inaccurate than other types of experts. We suggest potential reasons for these findings that may serve as the basis for future research. Overall, our study contributes to a growing literature on elite misperceptions of the public and underscores the particular inaccuracies of the media in understanding the attitudes of Americans.

中文翻译：

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谁失去联系？媒体对美国外交政策舆论的误解

摘要

尽管经常批评美国专家因为不了解普通美国人的政治观点而“脱节”，但是可以说，没有哪个组织比媒体更容易受到这一指控的影响。在本文中，我们利用独特的配对调查来衡量美国外交政策媒体专家与其他外交政策专家相比在评估美国参与世界这一关键问题上的舆论准确性。我们发现，虽然专家平均低估了美国公民对国际参与的有利程度，但媒体比其他类型的专家更不准确。我们建议这些发现的潜在原因，可以作为未来研究的基础。总体，