Political polling has become one of the most important aspects of elections, especially presidential elections. There are many different types of polling which I would like to explore in today's blog. Each polling type has its advantages and disadvantages which I found very interesting to explore.
Exit polling according to the text book is defined as "interviews conducted with voters as they leave the polls on election day". These are the polls that are used to make the predictions on election day that everyone watches on television. The bennifit to these polls is that we can sometimes predict early on what the results will be. The downfall to this type of polling is that sometimes people do not participate or will not give an honest answer. This creates skewed results and like we saw in they Bush/Gore election, results that ended up being false and putting the country in a state of confusion.
Sampling is another type of polling in which a random sample is taken from the population. Everyone has the same chance at being chosen to participate making it truely random. This type of pollins can be acturate and provide up to date results. The downside to this type of polling can be much the same as exit pollins. Sometimes, people are not willing to give their honest and true opinions which can scew the results greatly.
The next type of pollins is "push polling". Hollihan states that this type of "polling occurs when someone attempts to to influence someone while using the deception that they are merely conducting a poll". Because of this, these polls are usually not very credible and can also discourage people from participating in polls in the future. These types of polls obviously do more harm and can not be trusted.
Mail surveys, which we all get and usually just throw away, are usually low cost and easy to distribute. These types of surveys can either be sent to a specific grouping of people or to the general population as a whole. This type of survey really depends on what the researcher is trying to get out it. These can be useful, but in current times it is generally pretty hard to get people to send back these surveys or to take the time to do them.
Telephone interviews are something we all probably grow to hate. I know that when I get a call from a campaign to state my opinion I usually just hang up. This is the most common type of political polling. These usually can be completed fairly quickly but if your like me, you probably don't even take the time to hear the fisrt questions. While these interviews can be very effective, the issue of economic class biases exsist. Hollian writes that "African Americans and Hispanic Americans are often underrrepresented in phone polls, elderly citizens may be less likely to respond to pollsters, and that as a result postratification statistical manipulations must be used to weight the dadta to ensure propor samples".
Internet polls are something that we see every day, even when an election is not happening. Since most of the population has acess to the internet, these polls can be pretty effective depending on how they are conducted and what company is conducting them. For instance, it has been proven that the AOL Time Warner company is genearlly conservative much like most of their subscribers. When they post a poll online for subscribers to take, the results are genearlly biased twords conservatives. This is the same for network news websites. If we could come up with a way to make these internet polls less bias, they would be extremely effective and fast.
While these are not all the ways to poll, they were some of the more interesting ways that I chose to explore. Sometimes it is hard to trust these polls based on the way they were conducted, but it is important to have these polls in order to gain a sense of what the population is thinking,
Monday, October 26, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Political Advertising
Political advertising has come a long way since the beginning of politics. For one, our media and technology has changed so much. I wanted to explore all the effects of negative political advertising on not only the candidates and issues but also on the voters. We all know that advertising can be a very negative thing and sometimes makes you wonder what is true and what is not.
To begin, advertising comes from many different sources. Newspaper, radio, magazines, television, signs, buttons and bumper stickers, just to name a few. Not only do political candidates make use of these sources but so do organizations that stand behind certain issues. Around election times, it is almost impossible to step out of your house and not be surrounded by advertising everywhere you go.
I personally think that policital advertising has helped create the huge divide between our country. It is no secret that out country is more divided now than it ever has been before. With all the negative ads and the horrible lies how could we not be? For those of us who are not involved in politics other than just to vote, these ads can be extremely confusing and even cause people not to vote at all.
MSNBC published an article in 2006 after some research had been done during the 2004 election. Dr. Marco Iacoboni, a professor at UCLA concluded that viewers seemed to lose empathy for their own candidate once he was attacked. What is even more shocking is that in the last eight years, political parties are spending much more money on negative ads than positive ads. Maybe this is because politics has become about attacking one another and not focusing on the issues. “Negative ads make supporters of the attacker more likely to vote and followers of the victimized candidate depressed and less likely to vote”, said Stanford University communications professor Shanto Iyengar. “These ads do not get people to switch sides”, Iyengar said. "You can't get them to vote for you, but maybe you can get them to stay home."
With this research, it is shocking to me that the negative political ads keep growing. As a voter, I don’t really care to hear what one candidate can say badly about another. I want to hear honest views on the issues and more about the candidates themselves, not the bad things about the other. In the last election, I felt that even in the debates there was more negative words than I ever remember hearing in past elections. Its not wonder people stay home on Election Day. Why would you want to vote for someone who spends millions of dollars bashing someone else?
While the negative ads may leave an imprint in my brain, I personally would rather not watch them. Since I think it is of utmost importance to vote, I try to take every political ad that I see or hear with a grain of salt. I try to go online and read policy issues instead of watch TV to see peoples dignity shattered. With all these negative ads and very few ads about the candidates themselves, it is no wonder people feel like they cannot make an educated decision on who to vote for.
Works Cited Borenstein, Seth. "This is your brain on negative ads." 3 Nov. 2006. Web. 9 Oct. 2009. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15549677//.
To begin, advertising comes from many different sources. Newspaper, radio, magazines, television, signs, buttons and bumper stickers, just to name a few. Not only do political candidates make use of these sources but so do organizations that stand behind certain issues. Around election times, it is almost impossible to step out of your house and not be surrounded by advertising everywhere you go.
I personally think that policital advertising has helped create the huge divide between our country. It is no secret that out country is more divided now than it ever has been before. With all the negative ads and the horrible lies how could we not be? For those of us who are not involved in politics other than just to vote, these ads can be extremely confusing and even cause people not to vote at all.
MSNBC published an article in 2006 after some research had been done during the 2004 election. Dr. Marco Iacoboni, a professor at UCLA concluded that viewers seemed to lose empathy for their own candidate once he was attacked. What is even more shocking is that in the last eight years, political parties are spending much more money on negative ads than positive ads. Maybe this is because politics has become about attacking one another and not focusing on the issues. “Negative ads make supporters of the attacker more likely to vote and followers of the victimized candidate depressed and less likely to vote”, said Stanford University communications professor Shanto Iyengar. “These ads do not get people to switch sides”, Iyengar said. "You can't get them to vote for you, but maybe you can get them to stay home."
With this research, it is shocking to me that the negative political ads keep growing. As a voter, I don’t really care to hear what one candidate can say badly about another. I want to hear honest views on the issues and more about the candidates themselves, not the bad things about the other. In the last election, I felt that even in the debates there was more negative words than I ever remember hearing in past elections. Its not wonder people stay home on Election Day. Why would you want to vote for someone who spends millions of dollars bashing someone else?
While the negative ads may leave an imprint in my brain, I personally would rather not watch them. Since I think it is of utmost importance to vote, I try to take every political ad that I see or hear with a grain of salt. I try to go online and read policy issues instead of watch TV to see peoples dignity shattered. With all these negative ads and very few ads about the candidates themselves, it is no wonder people feel like they cannot make an educated decision on who to vote for.
Works Cited Borenstein, Seth. "This is your brain on negative ads." 3 Nov. 2006. Web. 9 Oct. 2009. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15549677//.
Hollihan, Thomas A. "Political Advertising." Uncivil Wars Political Campaigns in a Media Age. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's, 2009. 136-60. Print.
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