{"id":4230,"date":"2013-05-08T14:51:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T19:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=4230"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:47:32","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T18:47:32","slug":"an-opinion-on-public-opinion-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2013\/05\/08\/an-opinion-on-public-opinion-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"An Opinion on Public Opinion Polls"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_4234\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4234\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/boltron\/3132662146\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4234\" alt=\"Photo by boltron- via Flickr.com\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/files\/2013\/05\/Rest-Area1-300x240.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2013\/05\/Rest-Area1-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2013\/05\/Rest-Area1.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4234\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Nate Bolt via Flickr.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you\u2019ve ever taken a survey, you know what it\u2019s like to feel limited in giving an opinion: a simple \u201cagree\u201d or \u201cdisagree\u201d doesn\u2019t always capture the complexity of opinions; a few blank lines may leave too much room for you to be clear in your response; or maybe you don\u2019t <i>have<\/i> an instant opinion when probed about a given subject, but you heard your mom talking about it, you feel forced to pick a side, and you quickly regurgitate her opinion.<\/p>\n<p>These are only a few reasons sociologist <a href=\"http:\/\/sociology.columbia.edu\/node\/184\">Herbert Gans<\/a> warns that \u201cpublic opinion polls\u201d can\u2019t live up to the name. As he points out in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2013\/04\/public-opinion-polls-do-not-always-report-public-opinion\/\">article<\/a> from the Nieman Journalism Lab:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If poll results can be interpreted as opinion, they are pollster-evoked or <i>passive<\/i> opinions. They are not the active opinions of citizens who feel strongly about, or participate in some way in the debates about forthcoming legislation or a presidential decision.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gans explains the differences between \u201canswers\u201d and \u201copinions,\u201d and suggests that the media start informing its audiences on this subject. He also believes that the media should start offering more context around public opinion poll results to illustrate what the public is actually thinking. As it stands, communications to elected officials or involvement in town-hall meetings and demonstrations may be far more representative of a given community\u2019s \u201copinion\u201d than poll results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve ever taken a survey, you know what it\u2019s like to feel limited in giving an opinion: a simple \u201cagree\u201d or \u201cdisagree\u201d doesn\u2019t always capture the complexity of opinions; a few blank lines may leave too much room for you to be clear in your response; or maybe you don\u2019t have an instant opinion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":4232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[3163,769,693],"class_list":["post-4230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-news-media","tag-polls","tag-public-opinion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2013\/05\/Rest-Area.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4230"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5528,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions\/5528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}