Polling and the Public: What Every Citizen Should KnowHow can a public opinion poll of only 1,500 Americans accurately represent the entire population? Asher demystifies this and other polling issues with clear descriptions, colorful anecdotes, and such up-to-date examples as polls concerning doctor-assisted suicide and NATO expansion. He explains how the wording and ordering of the survey questions, and the interviewer's techniques profoundly affect the response the pollster gets. Public opinion polls are pervasive, influencing discourse and decision-making on practically every issue of public life. Yet they are poorly understood and often misused. Asher explores how polls are constructed, conducted, and interpreted - and what role they have in influencing the very attitudes they measure. He discusses the use of polls in campaign politics and media coverage of public opinion, and he guides readers to make their own judgments. |
Contents
The Problem of Nonattitudes | 26 |
Wording and Context of Questions | 44 |
Sampling Techniques | 61 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
AAPOR ABC News/Washington Post answers approval asked assess attitudes benchmark survey blacks campaign candidates CBS News/New York Chapter citizens Clinton context debate deliberative poll Democratic effects election polls example exit polls favor focus group Gallup Gallup Organization genuine households included incumbent inter Iraq issue Kuwait mailed questionnaires major media coverage Morin National Election Studies National Weekly Edition News/Washington Post poll newspaper Newsweek nonattitudes Nonprobability sampling overall particular political poll conducted poll results poll showed polling data polling organizations pollsters population Post National Weekly president presidential problem public opinion polls Public Opinion Quarterly public opinion survey push polling question order question wording race Reagan reporting Republican respondents response rate sampling error sponsored story subsets substantial survey questions Sussman telephone interviews telephone numbers television tion topic U.S. Senate undecided unlisted views vote voters Washington Post National whites York Times poll