I'd say Hothschild's stuff isn't that empirical. As far as I can tell, she just gives examples of cases where (she thinks) people do follow elite opinion and and should, don't follow it but should, do follow it but shouldn't, and don't follow it and shouldn't. There's nothing systematic about it.

Hochschild's own answer to my question is:

When should citizens reject elite opinion leadership?In principle, the answer is easy: the mass public should join the elite consensus when leaders’ assertions are empirically supported and morally justified. Conversely, the public should not fall in line when leaders’ assertions are either empirically unsupported, or morally unjustified, or both. p. 536

This view seems to be the intellectual cousin of the view that we should just believe what is supported by good epistemic standards, regardless of what others think. (These days, philosophers are calling this a "steadfast" (as contrasted with "conciliatory") view of disagreement.) I didn't talk about this kind of view, largely because I find it very unhelpful.

I haven't looked at Zaller yet but it appears to mostly be about when people do (rather than should) follow elite opinion. It sounds pretty interesting though.