Public-opinion polls are some of the most widely available resources on the Internet. Collections of public-opinion surveys are everywhere, often accompanied by detailed analysis by experts. The Internet is also used with increasing frequency as a way of partially collecting and measuring the moods of the American public. There are many ways that you can now use the Web to take an online survey, either to register your opinions or to learn how you compare to the public at large.
Begin your online research into public opinion by familiarizing yourself with some of the largest, most established polling operations:
The Gallup polling firm has made many of its surveys available online free of charge.
The Pew Center for the People & the Press makes its high-quality surveys accessible to the general public.
Some other prominent polling operations include Rasmussen Reports and Public Policy Polling.
After visiting the websites listed above, select a topic that interests you and explore it in further detail.
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| 1a. Which topic did you choose? |
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| 1b. What do Americans seem to say about this topic? Summarize the poll numbers. |
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Your textbook describes how you can become a savvy consumer of polls. You must not only look at what a poll says about public opinion but also consider how the poll is conducted.
Go to http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit or http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/opinion/polls/main500160.shtml and select a poll on a topic of interest to you.
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| 2a. What is the topic of the poll? What does the poll say about individuals’ beliefs regarding the topic? |
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| 2b. Who’s behind the poll? Who is paying for it? Who conducted it? |
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| 2c. Who participated in the poll? How many people participated, and how were they chosen? Were participants randomly selected? |
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| 2d. What is the margin of error for the poll? |
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| 2e. Do you think the questions on the poll are easy to understand? |
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| It is key, when interpreting any public opinion poll, to remember that many Americans begin with low basic levels of knowledge about the questions asked. Test your own level of political knowledge against the public’s at the Pew News IQ survey, located at pewresearch.org/newsiq. |
| 3a. What questions were you asked regarding current events? |
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| 3b. Describe your answers to the questions about current events. How did you score? |
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| 3c. At the end of the survey you can compare your knowledge to that of a broad sample of Americans who answered these same questions. What percentage of the public got the same score as you? |
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