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Chapter 18, Section IV. Measuring Public Opinion. Traditional Methods. Political Party Organizations Party leaders in cities communicated with national party leaders keeping them posted about the publics attitudes and opinions Interest Groups - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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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