Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Understanding the public opinion process in conditions of accelerating social changes is of ever greater urgency. We conceive public opinion as a process and thus as the outcome of discursive processes at three levels: the individual, the group and the society-wide. The role of the group level in this process has yet to be empirically explained therefore social groups are the main research units. The groups have a dual nature: they are both the environment in which individual opinion is formed and they are also an actor in the formation of collective public opinion. It has been shown that people are involved in the public opinion process in different ways, so we assume that the role of particular groups varies, too. The manifest form of public opinion as a social and a political force is therefore influenced by differences between the groups. The structure and dynamics of group involvement in the public opinion process are examined using the opinion leadership concept and the agenda-setting theory; the main research method is a panel study of groups formed around the opinion leaders.