The Conceptual Shift of “Public Opinion”: from a Political Ideal to an Object of Institutional Control

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze the process in which public opinion, a philosophical notion born as a political ideal during the Enlightenment, turns into an operative and pragmatic concept, systematically observed and functional for the empirical polling research in the first decades of the 20th century. The meanings that this concept acquires have indeed social consequences which imply the inclusion or exclusion of certain groups who use expressive ways of different political legitimacy. This process will let us understand the conceptual trajectory of public opinion just before the notion is ready to become a polling research object.

Keywords

• Opinión pública
• historia conceptual
• burguesía ilustrada
• sociedad de masas
• control de la opinión pública
• dispositivo
• encuestas
• sondeos.