There have been numerous books pointing to flaws in public opinion polls. In Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America (1995), Vice President and senior analyst of the Gallup Organization David W. Moore writes, "The views that people express in polls are very much influenced by the polling process itself, by the way questions are worded, their location in the interview, and the characteristics of the interviewers." By way of an example, Moore describes a 1940 experiment which found that the use of the words “forbid� and “allow� would yield significantly different results in one question. People were asked whether (1) “the United States should forbid speeches against democracy� and whether (2) “the U.S. should allow speeches against democracy.� The results: 46 percent of Americans responded “no� to the first question, yet only 25 percent of Americans agreed with the second question.
In Constructing Public Opinion:How Political Elites Do What They Like and Why We Seem to Go Along with It (2001), Justin Lewis, Professor of Communication and Deputy Head of the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University in Wales, writes, "It is well known in the poll literature that disparity in response can be generated by something as basic as question wording or by apparently innocuous information given by the interviewer." Supporting this statement, UCLA political science Professor John R. Zaller writes in his book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (1992): "Entirely trivial changes in questionnaire construction can easily produce 5 to 10 percentage point shifts in aggregate opinion, and occasionally double that." Citing a number of comprehensive studies, Lewis comments that the media fails to represent, especially in the United States, "the degree of support for a variety of political positions on the left from gun control to social justice issues." He argues that not only do polls inaccurately portray public opinion, but the media further distorts the perception of the polls by failing to report the complete range of opinions. Lewis additionally suggests that the news media particularly favors the interests of political and economic elites in their reporting about opinion polls.
Web Resources:
Wall Street Journal article featuring John Zogby of the polling company, Zogby International, Polling Isn't Perfect: Why voter surveys so often get it wrong. (11/14/02)
Article titled Public Opinion Polling Fraud (10/2003) by polling organization, Retro Poll which “designs and performs opinion polls that look at the relationship between public knowledge and public opinion.�
The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), of the University of Maryland, “carries out research on public attitudes on international issues by conducting nationwide polls, focus groups and comprehensive reviews of polling conducted by other organizations.�
Articles by Institute for Public Accuracy founder and executive director, Norman Solomon:
Polls: When Measuring Is Manipulating (10/18/02)
Polls give Numbers, but Truth Is More Elusive (5/17/96)
Polling Report is "An independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion,�
The Washington Post published a list of poll research organizations and associations.
The Roper Center at the University of Connecticut offers links to polling organizations and associations at their web site.
National Council on Public Polls published the following articles:
20 Questions A Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results
Answers to Questions We Often Hear From the Public
About Polling offers information on the field of opinion research gathered from a variety of sources and commentators by the nonprofit organization called Public Agenda, which was founded decades ago by Cyrus Vance and Daniel Yankelovich.
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