History Of Polling Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The genesis of opinion research traces to 1824, when The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian conducted its presidential straw poll, showing Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams. As a “man-on-the-street” poll, such opinion measurement did not employ the scientific rigors used in modern survey research. However, it laid the cornerstone of modern practice for forecasting election outcomes. Through the next one hundred years, this type of straw polling increased in popularity; yet it remained local, usually a citywide exercise.

Before the straw poll, a more rigorous method of social measurement had been in use for more than a generation. Beginning in 1790, the U.S. Bureau of the Census operated on principles that would become standard practices in social research firms not until the 1940s. As early as the 1820 census, the secretary of state’s report indicates that census takers used standardized forms detailing “the interrogatories to be put forth at each dwelling house. ”This report indicates that census takers followed a method of deciding whom to interview, and how to pose questions. Simple as they seem, these are standard features required of today’s large-scale survey research efforts. As is the case today, the census takers in the 1820s made multiple visits to a dwelling in order to speak with a specified respondent, as would field interviewers would do today. Like the three prior censuses, the 1820 census acquired information on all household inhabitants by age, gender, and slave or free status. Unlike the prior census, it collected information on occupations and thus was the first in the United States to go beyond simply enumerating the population, and began economic and demographic measurement.

The early census data collection efforts were conducted face-to-face. As such, these surveys were succinct. Concerned with literacy levels, it would not have been feasible to conduct the census by mail as much of the census is done today. The labor-intensive face-to-face methods of the census would have been cost prohibitive for most newspapers or magazines. Consequently, newspapers of the day used local intercept samples or so-called man-on-the-street interviews for timely feedback on topics of the day.

The Philosophers

The history of monitoring public opinion begins in antiquity. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) saw a place for public input and expressed the view that a collective wisdom would cancel individual ignorance: “All when they meet together, are either better than the experts or at any rate no worse.” Later Italian political operative Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) shifted the discussion from the place of opinion in a good society to the manipulation of it. In The Prince, Machiavelli advised his audience to manage, manipulate and control public through threats and rewards. John Locke (1632–1704) suggested that consensus is essential to forming a government. Out of self-interest, people form a social contract requiring each to surrender some unfettered liberty in exchange for security. Similarly Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) echoed Aristotle, saying that the “organic will” of the people was greater than the sum of its individual parts.

The Early 1900s: Beyond The Straw Polls

Scientific research began in the 1900s, with Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell publishing Public Opinion and Popular Government (1913) and Public Opinion in War and Peace (1923). Lowell sought to define the concept of public opinion, and chart its formation by beginning with an understanding of how individual preferences form. He observed “violent temporary emotions” in Britain after the World War (1914–1918). At about this time American news journalist Walter Lippman noted the power of symbolism in opinion formation. He instructed to recognize “the triangular relationship” between an event, the individual’s interpretation of an event, and the observer’s reaction to that event. Similarly Harold Lass well observed the importance of symbolism and ideas that helped keep a few in control of the many. Leaders intervened in the interpretation to shape behavior.

A major methodological breakthrough for nonfederally funded social research came in 1916, when the Literary Digest conducted the first national survey (other than the U.S. Census). With this endeavor, the Literary Digest mailed postcards to its wide readership and counted the returns. Using this readership sample, the Literary Digest called the following four presidential elections. In 1936, the Literary Digest went wrong. Despite its sample of two million subscribers, it was a generally affluent readership and tended to lean Republican. The Literary Digest did nothing to account for this and misreported that Alf Landon was leading Franklin D. Roosevelt by a wide margin.

George Gallup And The Growth Of A Science

At about the same time, George Gallup conducted a far smaller, but more scientifically valid, survey. By polling a demographically representative sample, Gallup accurately predicted Roosevelt’s 1936 victory. Later Gallup demonstrated that even rigorous methods must acknowledge a margin of error, as his organization predicted Thomas Dewey would win the 1948 presidential election. Only with the rise of sampling methods like Gallup’s could privately owned and operated survey research organizations afford to perform valid social research. Moreover, the introduction of methodological and statistical r igors allowed for the systematic examination of public opinion. Gallup’s use of a probability sample reduced the costs of conducting nationwide research between censuses.

After the 1936 election, Gallup launched a subsidiary in the United Kingdom. Using statistical methods, Gallup correctly predicted Labour’s 1945 victory, to the dismay of nearly every other pundit, who expected incumbent prime minister Winston Churchill’s Tories to win. In the late 1940s, Gallup and his colleagues Angus Campbell, Paul Lazarsfeld, Elmo Roper, and others brought widespread professionalism to survey research and organized the American Association for Public Opinion Research. The significance of this move was to create a body that advocated rigorous methods, and shared and published sound research and experimental findings on questionnaire features and sampling methods, and promulgated best practices in the conduct and reporting of survey research. They subsequently established a peer-reviewed journal, Public Opinion Quarterly.

As data collection methods matured, so did statistical sampling techniques. One of the more enduring probability selection methods was introduced in 1965, when statistician Leslie Kish published Survey Sampling. Kish described a method of rostering household members and then selecting one for inclusion. This reduced bias in the sampling process. Another innovator of this era was Gertrude Cox, who, with W. G. Cochran moved the world of experimental design in the 1950s by emphasizing the importance of methodological rigors and the centrality of randomization. Later in life she stressed the importance of ethics in social science.

Technological Advances

Advances in communication combined with population concentration in North America meant that survey research became less expensive and more common. With this, sociologists, psychologists, economists, political scientists, and market research firms all saw opportunities to conduct sample survey research.

For many years, opinion polls were conducted face-to face, in homes. They still are for major public health and economic surveys, and even political surveys such as the National Election Studies in Britain, Canada, and the United States. Using paper and pencil less frequently, such surveys today are recorded using laptop computers and more recently, handheld devices. Computer assisted interviewing (CAI) programming ensures that appropriate follow-up questions are posed and can catch inconsistent entries. CAI records time to complete surveys and individual question times, thereby helping to detect interviewer fraud. Phone banks, where computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) is used, employ this same type of technology.

Today’s computerized personal interviewing allows for multiple modes of data collection by posing sensitive questions using audio devices running on a laptop computer. In-person interviewing remains widely used, but in some countries telephone data collection has overtaken it, because telephone data collection can be conducted faster and more affordably. Telephone interviewing has been used since the 1960s, but two features emerged in the 1970s and 1980s that increased its utility. The first was random-digit dialing (RDD) the other is CATI technology. The RDD sampling method selects phone numbers randomly using known area codes and exchanges. This helps minimize bias of using phone directories. With this growth of cellular phone use comes concerns over sampling cell phones in household surveys. Because of the common practice of telemarketers selling products under the guise of a telephone survey and the proliferation of residential call screening devices, do-not-call lists, and use of cell phones, response rates for some phone surveys have plummeted. With these innovations, the adequacy of telephone survey research is being closely scrutinized.

Warren Mitofsky is credited with creating the first RDD methodology while serving the U.S. Bureau of the Census. After leaving this position for a career in political polling for news media, he developed another modern practice: the exit poll. In the late 1960s, he initiated the use of brief, in-person interviews with voters as they left voting places. This allowed broadcasters to anticipate outcomes before the votes could be counted. This practice was criticized as polluting the election process and discouraging voting especially in western time zones. By the 1990s, Mitofsky, with cooperation of major news outlets, performed these through his Voter News Service, VNS, avoiding the problem and cost of having competing services deluging voters at polling places. News agencies then, by consensus, agreed not to forecast election day outcomes until polls close.

Another quickly growing computerized data collection method is Web-enabled interviewing. Programs with standardized forms can be purchased that permit anyone with a Web page to create a Web-enabled survey. This new technology raises sampling issues since older and some less affluent people do not own home computers. Use of e-mail lists is also treated with trepidation, as these also attach to an individual rather than household. Concerns center as well on the ease with which addresses become obsolete as people change providers or e-mail is screened. Technological advances have also led to emergence of polling services such as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang. These “off the shelf ” systems provide stock questionnaires and an online response system available to paying customers.

More sophisticated online panels have been another innovation in the survey marketplace. Knowledge Networks (KN) and Harris Interactive (HI) are two examples of “sampling” through panels since the late 1990s.A panel, or group of survey respondents representing people with various demographic or other features, participates in surveys at multiple points in time. KN and HI sell access to these panels, maintain contact information on them, and carry out “maintenance” to evaluate the representative qualities of the panels and keep panelists participating and provide analytical support. The reliability of panel research is an area of ongoing study.

Technological advances permit easier, more secure, and faster data collection. At the same time, researchers do take caution in measuring the effects of technology on coverage, response rates, and bias due to modality.

Bibliography:

Asher, Herbert B. Polling and the Public: What Every Citizen Should Know. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1998.
Clymer, A. “Warren J. Mitofsky, 71, Innovator Who Devised Exit Poll, Dies.” New York Times, Sept. 4, 2006.
Mitofsky,Warren J. “A Short History of Exit Polls.” In Polling and Presidential Election Coverage, edited by Paul J. Lavrakas and Jack K. Holley. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1991.
Moore, David W. The Super Pollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1992.
Page, Benjamin I., and Robert Y. Shapiro. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). “History of Opinion Polling.” NOW Newsmagazine Series. www.pbs.org/now/politics/polling.html.
Roper Center. “History of the Roper Center.” University of Connecticut. www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/center/roper_history.html.

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