Measuring Public Opinion

MEASURING PUBLIC OPINION

Chapter 18, Section IV

Traditional Methods Political Party Organizations

Party leaders in cities communicated with national party leaders keeping them posted about the publics attitudes and opinions

Interest GroupsOften represent only a small vocal minority

concerned with a specific issue

Traditional Methods Mass Media

Newscasts that get higher ratings show more public interest

Drawbacks are that media relies on shock value and this can distort reality○ People that get their news solely from TV tend

to be pessimistic

Traditional Methods Shock Value Examples

Traditional Methods Letter Writing

Interest groups stage massive letter writing campaigns generating thousands of letters

National Write Your Congressman○ For profit service that sums up legislation and

helps you contact your elected officialsPurple Letter

○ For profit servicethat helps you contact electedofficials

Traditional Methods Electronic Access

EmailFaxTwitterInternet

Straw PollsUnscientific attempts to measure public

opinionBiased sample – people who respond are self

selected (they choose to respond)

Scientific Polling Sample Populations

The Universe: group of people being studied○ If I asked the senior class where the prom should be held,

what would be the universe?Representative Sample: Small group of people

representative of the universe○ If I asked every fourth senior homeroom the same

question, I would have a representative sample of your class

Random Sampling: Everyone in the universe has an equal chance of being selected○ 1,200-1,500 adults accurately measure the opinions of

212 million people

Scientific Polling Sampling Error:

How much the sample results may differ from the sample universe1,200-1,500 people

give us an error of +/- 3%

Unskewed Polls

Scientific Polling Sampling Procedures

Cluster Sampling – organizing sampling by geographical divisions○ Race○ Gender○ Age○ Education

Scientific Polling Poll Questions

Do you believe serial murderers should be executed?

Do you support capital punishment?

Scientific Polling Mail and Phone Polls

Cheaper than in home interviews○ Less polls are returned (mail only 10-15%)

Random Digit Dialing○ Area code and first three digits are selected

and a computer picks the last 4○ People don’t answer the phone, or don’t want

to answer the questions

Scientific Polling Interpreting Results

Never completely accurate○ Honesty?

Has improved greatly since its inception in the 1930’s

Can usually predict outcomes within a few percentage points