public opinion polls

Examples of public opinion polls in the following topics:

• The Gallup Poll

  • The Gallup Poll is a public opinion poll that conducts surveys in 140 countries around the world.
  • Originally founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became famous for its public opinion polls, which were conducted in the United States and other countries.
  • George Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion, the precursor to the Gallup Organization, in Princeton, New Jersey in 1935.
  • The Gallup Poll is the division of Gallup that regularly conducts public opinion polls in more than 140 countries around the world.
  • Gallup Polls are often referenced in the mass media as a reliable and objective audience measurement of public opinion.

• The Gallup Organization

  • George Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion, the precursor of The Gallup Organization, in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1935.
  • He wished to objectively determine the opinions held by the general public.
  • The Gallup Poll is the division of Gallup that regularly conducts public opinion polls in more than 140 countries around the world.
  • Gallup Polls are often referenced in the mass media as a reliable and objective measurement of public opinion.
  • Locate the historical origins and significance of the Gallup Organization for public opinion research in the United States

• Types of Polls

  • The main types of polls are: opinion, benchmark, bushfire, entrance, exit, deliberative opinion, tracking, and the straw poll.
  • An opinion poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample.
  • Rather than simply determining existing public opinion, a deliberative poll aims to understand what public opinion would be if the public were well-informed and had carefully discussed a particular issue.
  • Push polling has been condemned by the American Association of Political Consultants and the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
  • Compare and contrast the different types of polls utilized to measure public opinion

• Early Public Opinion Research and Polling

  • The first known example of an opinion poll was an 1824 local straw poll by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian for the Jackson Adams race.
  • The first known example of an opinion poll was a local straw poll conducted by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian in 1824, showing Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams by 335 votes to 169 in the contest for the United States Presidency.
  • Louis Harris had been in the field of public opinion since 1947 when he joined the Elmo Roper firm, then later became partner.
  • By the 1950s, various types of polling had spread to most democracies.
  • Identify the historical origins of public opinion research in the United States

• Defining Public Opinion

  • Public opinion or political opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population.
  • Public opinion as a concept gained credence with the rise of "public" in the eighteenth century.
  • So, public opinion polling cannot measure the public.
  • Governments have increasingly found surveys to be useful tools for guiding their public policies through voter polls as seen in .
  • Public opinion can be influenced by public relations and the political media.

• A Closer Look at the Gallup Poll

  • The Gallup Poll is an opinion poll that uses probability samples to try to accurately represent the attitudes and beliefs of a population.
  • The Gallup Poll is the division of Gallup, Inc. that regularly conducts public opinion polls in more than 140 countries around the world.
  • It is very well known when it comes to presidential election polls and is often referenced in the mass media as a reliable and objective audience measurement of public opinion.
  • The Gallup Poll is an opinion poll that uses probability sampling.
  • These people can still vote, but their opinions would not be taken into account in the polls.

• Constructing Public Opinion Surveys

  • An opinion poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample, and is designed to represent the opinions of a population.
  • An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a "poll," is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample .
  • Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals.
  • Some prospective respondents may simply be less likely to respond to polls generally, not interested in the subject, or may be unreachable for many reasons.
  • For example, polls or surveys that are conducted by calling a random sample of publicly available telephone numbers will not include the responses of people with unlisted telephone numbers, cell phone numbers, who are unable to answer the phone, and who do not answer calls from unknown/unfamiliar telephone numbers.

• The Literary Digest Poll

  • Founded by Isaac Kaufmann Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, Public Opinion and Current Opinion.
  • Beginning with early issues, the emphasis of The Literary Digest was on opinion articles and an analysis of news events.
  • Established as a weekly news magazine, it offered condensations of articles from American, Canadian, and European publications.
  • George Gallup's American Institute of Public Opinion achieved national recognition by correctly predicting the result of the 1936 election and by also correctly predicting the quite different results of the Literary Digest poll to within about 1%, using a smaller sample size of 50,000.
  • This debacle led to a considerable refinement of public opinion polling techniques and later came to be regarded as ushering in the era of modern scientific public opinion research.

• The Year the Polls Elected Dewey

  • Virtually every prediction (with or without public opinion polls) indicated that Truman would be defeated by Dewey.
  • Let's take a closer look at the polls.
  • The Gallup, Roper, and Crossley polls all predicted a Dewey win.
  • This would cause significant error in the results of the poll.
  • Pollsters, in reality, were left to poll whomever they chose.

• Telephone Surveys

  • A telephone survey is a type of opinion poll used by researchers.
  • In certain polls, the interviewer or interviewee (or both) may wish to remain anonymous, which can be achieved if the poll is conducted over the phone by a third party.
  • As some people do not answer calls from strangers, or may refuse to answer the poll, poll samples are not always representative samples from a population due to what is known as non-response bias.
  • However, if those who do not answer have different opinions, then the results have bias.
  • In terms of election polls, studies suggest that bias effects are small, but each polling firm has its own techniques for adjusting weights to minimize selection bias.