Polling experts talked about the results of a Kantar study of public views on their perceptions of opinion polls. Topics included perceptions of bias, the accuracy of polls taken via the Internet versus home phones and cell phones, and how the polling process may change in the near future. [cont.] Kantar / C-SPAN Read more »
Three in four Americans see public opinion polling as biased
… Three out of four Americans perceive polling to be biased. This is the case across all demographic subgroups with little variance. (Q15A) Americans particularly distrust the results of polls from candidates, political parties and automated voice recording firms, but news media polls don’t inspire widespread trust, either. (Q17A) While […] Read more »
Respecting the Science
Some folks – perhaps only stats nerds like yours truly – noticed this item in the press last week: “Second-Quarter G.D.P. Revised Sharply Higher … Government statisticians gave the American economy a lift Thursday when they sharply revised their calculation of the nation’s second-quarter growth to an annual rate of […] Read more »
Rape: the Darkest Dark Figure of Crime
… All official crime stats are missing the so-called “dark figure” of unreported crime. “You can think of rape and sexual assault as the darkest of the dark figure of crime,” said Candace Kruttschnitt, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who is co-chairing a panel of researchers who are […] Read more »
Twitter doesn’t have pollsters running scared
Excuse the pun, but the polling world is all “atwitter” about a University of Indiana professor’s claim that the social media platform Twitter will “undermine the polling industry” and that analyzing social media conversations will put campaign pollsters “out of work.” … Pushback from the polling world has been swift […] Read more »
#FF Polling
There’s a new study out purporting to show that Twitter mentions are just as good as polling in predicting elections. I’m skeptical, and regardless of the study’s findings, the truth is that good survey research—whether for campaigns, news organizations, or academic research—does far more than predict winners. [cont.] Jonathan Bernstein, […] Read more »