DATE=7/28/03

TYPE=FOCUS

TITLE="The Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy" (Part 1)

NUMBER=8-211

BYLINE=Victor Morales

TELEPHONE=(202) 260-8525

DATELINE=Washington, D.C.

EDITOR=Ed Warner

CONTENT=

INTRO: How do ideas become mainstream in society? Who are America's opinion leaders and how do they affect the way businesses market their products and politicians campaign for office?

On Focus, V-O-A's Victor Morales examines who shapes public opinion in American society.

MR. MORALES: The most influential people in the United States -- the ones who tell their neighbors what to buy and which politicians to support -- are not necessarily the people you would expect.

That's the finding of a new book on public opinion and leadership called: The Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy written by Ed Keller and Jon Berry. Mr. Berry is Vice President of Roper A-S-W, a global marketing, polling and consulting firm. He joins us from his office in New York.

Also with us is John DiIulio (dee-YOU-lee-oh) -- Frederic Fox Leadership Professor of Politics, Religion and Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. He joins us from his home in Philadelphia.

Let's start with Jon Berry. Who are "The Influentials" and why are they important?

MR. BERRY: What we've identified through the years is that there are Americans who are at the center of the national conversation -- not only about what's going on the society broadly, like what's going on in politics and government, but also what's going on in their communities and what's going on in the consumer marketplace. And it's basically a reflection of participatory democracy, but also participatory democracy "at large" because there is a lot of change that takes place in American society that happens well beyond what you see in the newspapers about the doings at City Hall or in Washington. The definition that we [at Roper] use to identify these people is those who "show up and make their opinions known." We use a check-off list of things people have done in the past year ranging from going to a meeting on town or school affairs to being on a committee to being the head of a club or organization, writing letters to the editor of a newspaper, calling talk radio shows, making a speech or writing articles.

MR. MORALES: John DiIulio, these "Influentials" make up about 10% of the U-S population today. Are there any historical parallels?

MR. DIIULIO: I think that if you look at it historically, there have always been groups of so-called "local notables" and so forth, people who were the activists in their communities and took the lead in serving on what we would today call local school boards or other kinds of civic associations . . . people who were connected across a wide range of communities, not just their own ethnic or religious group, but across many groups and people who were looked to by others for their opinions on politics, books, movies and other kinds of entertainment. So I think there are many interesting historical parallels.

MR. BERRY: Actually, you can even go back to the founding of the country. For example, Benjamin Franklin started the first public library and first volunteer fire department. [Alexis] de Tocqueville, when traveling across the U-S [in the early 1830s] remarked, among other things, on a concept of 'self interest properly understood' -- that Americans seem to have the ability to find the intersection between their own self interests and and the interests of the community and how that brought people together. It's something I'm not sure that has sunk into the broader consciousness of the country yet [i.e., been realized by most Americans], but for a number of years now we have been seeing a real resurgence in Americans' involvement in local community affairs. A lot of it has been through organizations and groups that have come together, for example, to raise funds for arts programs in local schools or environmental organizations that have been started.

MR. MORALES: Professor DiIulio, let me follow up on that. How much do these "Influentials" actually reflect American ideals, values and institutions?

MR. DIIULIO: I think they pretty much do. The portrait in the book of "The Influentials" is that they are pretty balanced souls. They are economically motivated, but not obsessed with money. They're family focused, but civilly engaged. They're technology friendly, but they live real and not 'virtual' lives. They're not couch potatoes. They are very happy to live in this country, but they are considerably international in their perspective. And with respect to political ideals, while they are somewhat more conservative than they are liberal -- self-reported, self-described [i.e., as they describe themselves in polls and questionnaires], the partisan breakdown is almost even between Democrats and Republicans with about a quarter being Independents. And that's pretty much a reflection of the population as a whole.

MR. MORALES: Jon Berry, let me get your take on that.

MR. BERRY: There's a sort of 'center of gravity' to the ideas in society that keeps things moving along despite what you see on the fringes and the things that often get reported in newspapers. We [at Roper] think that this is basically where you find it [i.e., the 'center of gravity'], within this group. They manage to balance a lot of different ideas. We did a values analysis of this group subsequent to the book. And we thought that it was pretty striking because what we saw as the seams [i.e., main threads running through this group] were not so much status, prestige or one-upsmanship, but personal relationships, "I will get involved in the schools, for example, because it will create a better educational environment for my kids and for my neighbors' and friends' kids;" exploration, "I will try this new idea or go to a new place on vacation, for example, because it's interesting and I will learn something from it;" and integrity, being authentic and true to yourself.

MR. MORALES: Jon, let me stay with you for just a moment. How do these "Influentials" get and spread ideas?

MR. BERRY: Basically, they're "the ones who show up." And they literally have a broader set of connections. We did one survey in which we found that they have the longest Christmas card lists [of people to whom they write]. And that's sort of a shorthand way of describing the group. They are the folks who know the most people. And from that, they have an ability to hear things -- to learn -- about what's going on. And they have a network to disperse information. Sometimes it's done deliberately, if there's a political campaign or issue that people are very concerned about. They'll sit down at their computer and send out an e-mail to 50 or 100 people. A lot of times though, what we found through in-depth interviews with "Influentials" is that there are informal exchanges of information, getting to know people. For example, when you're sitting down before a school board or business meeting, you look at the person next to you -- you might recognize them, you might not -- and you look for ways to connect with them. These are the kinds of things we often do when we're just getting acquainted. The often ask: "What did you do this weekend? Where are you going? What do you think of that person? What do you think of this idea?" And through that subtle interaction, we think that there's a lot of really powerful change that happens in society.

MR. MORALES: John DiIulio, these "Influentials" have been called "the early majority" [i.e., trend setters]. Do we have a sense of how politicians and businesses have been able to tap into this group?

MR. DIIULIO: There is a lot of research that suggests that politicians more and more have understood that making mass appeals is somewhat less effective than targeting their message and looking for what this book very finely describes as "The Influentials" among us. These people, these citizen leaders are largely self-motivated, self-selected. Their leadership ranks seem largely open to diverse college graduates of just about any age who have the drive, the wit, the creative optimism, as Mr. Berry said, to "show up" and get engaged. And I think that politicians have learned over the past several election cycles that these are the people who are actually in the end most likely to register and vote. So it's important to sort of narrow cast political appeals to this group. Now, that may have adverse consequences in terms of broader concerns about democracy. But they [i.e., politicians] certainly have, I think, begun to pick up on this reality.

MR. MORALES: Next time on Focus, we'll discuss where "The Influentials" are leading America with our guests: author and pollster, Jon Berry; and political scientist, John DiIulio (dee-YOU-lee-oh).

For Focus, I'm Victor Morales.