There is a sense in which “opinion” rather than knowledge, even under the most favorable circumstances, is the proper term to use--namely, in the sense of judgment, estimate.
John Dewey
The Public Record
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
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Only continuous inquiry, continuous in the sense of being connected as well as persistent, can provide the material of enduring opinion about public matters.
It is as if a physician were able to deal for the moment with an emergency in disease but could not adapt his treatment of it to the underlying conditions which brought it about.
Public opinion, even if it happens to be correct, is intermittent when it is not the product of methods of investigation and reporting constantly at work.
Opinion casually formed and formed under the direction of those who have something at stake in having a lie believed can be public opinion only in name.
The number who share error as to fact and who partake of a false belief measures power for harm.
Unless there are methods for detecting the energies which are at work and tracing them through an intricate network of interactions to their consequences, what passes as public opinion will be “opinion” in its derogatory sense rather than…
Opinions and beliefs concerning the public presuppose effective and organized inquiry.
For public opinion is judgment which is formed and entertained by those who constitute the public and is about public affairs.
This marks one of the first ideas framed in the growth of political democracy as it will be one of the last to be fulfilled.
Communication of the results of social inquiry is the same thing as the formation of public opinion.
Seeds are sown, not by virtue of being thrown out at random, but by being so distributed as to take root and have a chance of growth.