Stupid polls (a little rant)

[DrEast]

"President Bush's speech on the financial crisis was

*reassuring
*frightening"

How about, completely irrelevant? A blatant power grab? A miserably Keynesian, interventionist analysis of a predictable meltdown of a credit-based currency?

"Do you think the $700B bailout plan in front of Congress should be passed?

*yes
*no, we need more information"

How about, no, never, we're not retarded infants clamoring to keep the Ponzi scheme propped up? How about, let Paulson hang and throw Bernanke out of his own helicopter?

CNN is a fine enough place to go for bad propaganda and amusing human interest stories, but its polls drive me up the wall with how they blatantly try to frame the choices available. It's insulting to the intelligence.

So is, for that matter, the way McCain referenced "All Americans, Republican or Democrat" yesterday. I realized recently that politicians are ALWAYS doing this, and it grates. Seriously, no wonder politicians have no respect for voters if they're this easily led around by the nose.

[stasis]

CNN is a fine enough place to go for bad propaganda and amusing human interest stories, but its polls drive me up the wall with how they blatantly try to frame the choices available. It's insulting to the intelligence.
CNN polls like the one you're describing are not uncommonly an example of voluntary response sampling (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) in the poorest of applications. The internet and phone-in polls, for example. These polls will attract a majority of people with strong and outspoken opinion on the subject, and therefore tend to outlie (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) the median to such a degree that the result is meaningless. In other words, they have little or no statistical value. So it really doesn't matter what the poll options are.

[DrEast]

CNN polls like the one you're describing are not uncommonly an example of voluntary response sampling (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) in the poorest of applications. The internet and phone-in polls, for example. These polls will attract a majority of people with strong and outspoken opinion on the subject, and therefore tend to outlie (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) the median to such a degree that the result is meaningless. In other words, they have little or no statistical value. So it really doesn't matter what the poll options are.

Not if your goal is to conduct a poll, no.

But if your goal is to shape opinion through the act of polling, by curtailing avenues of thought in the reader...

[stasis]

But if your goal is to shape opinion through the act of polling, by curtailing avenues of thought in the reader...
I couldn't go so far as to accuse them of such a thing. Do you suppose it might alternatively have something to do with delivering what market research suggests the viewers are going to be most responsive to?

[DrEast]

I couldn't go so far as to accuse them of such a thing. Do you suppose it might alternatively have something to do with delivering what market research suggests the viewers are going to be most responsive to?

Oh, it may not be their intent to shape the debate, exactly. The way the polls are set up, they're just instant feedback for those who vote on how everyone else who voted responded. It's a way to make the reader feel like part of the process.

That said, I think there exists a feedback effect where biases shape the polls and the polls shape the biases. That's actually what this rant is all about: Biases are self-perpetuating when people, organizations, communities, countries are not sufficiently self-reflective. What's worse, by framing the people who do think about these things and come up with a better angle on the situation than the ones provided by the existing biases as "outside the debate", it creates an automatic kind of censorship that's far more effective than a black marker and a pair of scissors.

It's not just the CNN polls... this exists in every level of society and in every kind of discourse. It's harmful to reasonable discourse.

I wish this sort of debate shaping were intentional. It would mean that along the line someone's conscience might flare up and impede the process. But it's not, so it won't. Sigh...

[le Duc]

Do you suppose it might alternatively have something to do with delivering what market research suggests the viewers are going to be most responsive to?

I wish this sort of debate shaping were intentional.

I think the debate shaping absolutely is intentional, for the reason stated by statis, above. Every outlet does it, from politics to finance to sports... you shape the debate to get the most feathers ruffled and the most controversy going, because that's what sells the airtime or generates hits on the websites.

[SShack]

You guys are overanalyzing. The point of the CNN poll is to get more page views at cnn.com. Seriously. Nobody in the media actually thinks they have any scientific value. I say this with complete confidence as a member of the media. They're not trying to frame debates or manipulate opinions. That much thought doesn't even go into them. The media is all in an "interactivity is extremely important" mode trying to get more eyeballs on the sites to compensate for drops in readership/viewership. That's really all it is.

[Tablelamp]

The point of the CNN poll is to get more page views at cnn.com.

Truth. Unless the think they can get more money through a differant route, like being paid for propaganda rights by a candidate.

Sad how the news is more entertaining than normal daytime television, eh?;D

[blueback]

The problem is that the news is reported by companies. Companies exist to increase shareholder value. The way for a news company to increase their profits is to. . .wait for it. . .make up news. If people ever realized just how little was going on in the world they would go play catch with their kid, or something, instead of watching the news.

The news companies profit off of people wanting to know what is going on. When nothing is going on, they invent something.

My corporate finance teacher has no idea whether a bailout would be a net positive or a net negative, let alone me, let alone some random person on the street who barely got out of college with a degree in physical therapy. Their opinions don't matter because they don't know enough to have an opinion. What they do have is a mouth, and there are other people with mouths, and it's guaranteed that something different will come out of each of their mouths. In the world of 24 hour news, that difference is a disagreement, which is an argument, which is a fight, which is news.

The news companies spend most of their time reporting on fights. All they have to do to generate one is ask a bunch of people the same question. When they disagree, it's a national emergency.

[CaptainA]

The point of the CNN poll is to get more page views at cnn.com. Seriously. Nobody in the media actually thinks they have any scientific value.

True and True. However they will then come out with something that says "A CNN poll Found" and this will lead to the Baaa factor, whereby the sheep of our nation will follow the most "popular" opinion in the belief that it must be correct.

A well researched poll with proper options and analysis is a useful tool. However most are not.