Question

What are public opinion polls? To whom are they useful? How are public opinion polls conducted? Are they reliable? Why or why not?

Answer 1

PUBLIC OPINION POLL

It is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. It is a sketch to represent the judgement of the population by conducting a sequence of questions and then assume possibilities of the outcome or results based upon the receive data.

Polls are helpful in electing a body or any individual from a mass group but it is important to understand that the polls do not forecast the final result; they are only a reflection of voter intentions at a specific period of time. They are useful in understanding what the likely radius of outcome will be.

Polls are conducted in many ways such as telephone and face-to-face interview. Other methods include mail, online, and self-administered surveys. Online polling which is most common of all it is the latest platform for performing online public polling with wide range of people. Face to face interview polling is conducted with interviewer and interviewee sitting next to each other. The interviewer reads information from the questionnaire and save the interviewee’s responses. At times the interviewer may hand a card to the respondent for him/her to select a definite response.

Public opinion poll is reliable to some extent depending upon some specific situation. In case of random sample it is important that everyone in the population being studied has an equal opportunity of participating. Otherwise, the results could be biased and, therefore, not representative of the population.

Regardless of often being misinterpret and disguise by commentators, activists, pressure group and even the public, there is no doubt that when conducted and interpreted correctly, polls provide an essential mark of political opinion. They may not be fully correct but they are still the best way of measuring and understanding what the public thinks about a future or upcoming event at a point in time.

There are few thumb rules to understand the reams of polling data. First, make sure that the agency behind the poll is reputable and well known. Second, the polling agency may be reputable, but pay attention to how the data has been interpreted or organised. Make sure the data is publicly available, which will help you to understand whether it has been reported in an accurate, balanced and unequivocal way, and presents a true reflection of the results. Therefore public poll can be very helpful if few things are kept on mind.