The Development of an Issue Public: Evidence from The Eras Tour

Abstract

Scholars describe the American electorate as generally uninformed about politics, but segmented into "issue publics" with structured preferences on specific issues. These groups may ameliorate the democratic dilemma, but theory and evidence on how individuals join them lag behind that ambitious claim. We propose a two-stage theory of issue public development. It begins with potential issue publics—groups with highly-valued, apolitical interests or identities that hold latent connections to issues. A pivotal circumstance then activates an issue's politics for individual members. We test this theory with a unique case: Taylor Swift fans' attempts to purchase high-demand concert tickets in November 2022. Website errors created as-if random ticket allocation, accentuating the politics of economic fairness for unlucky fans. Survey evidence supports our preregistered expectations: fans' ticket-buying fates caused durable attitudinal and behavioral differences toward event ticketing politics. We conclude that highlighting the political relevance of apolitical interests could facilitate democratic accountability.