Public Opinion Research Pdf

[Bonifacia Cramm]

TheAAPOR community includes producers and users of survey data from a variety of disciplines. Our members span a range of interests including election polling, market research, statistics, research methodology, health related data collection and education.

Many of you know me primarily as a methodologist. But in fact, my path to AAPOR had nothing to do with methodology. My early papers, in fact, wholly either provided criticism of, or underscored the critical value of, public opinion and public opinion polls.

And so in some respects, this Presidential Address is for me, completes a full circle of thought and passion I have for AAPOR, for today I would like to discuss matters pertaining to the need to reconsider, strengthen, and advance the mission of survey research in democracy.

It is sometimes asked whether leaders do consult polls and whether polls have any impact of policy. The relationship here is complex, but time and again researchers have found a meaningful and significant effect of public opinion, typically as measured by polling, on public policy. As one example, Page and Shapiro explored trends in American public opinion from the 1930s to the 1980s and found no less than 231 different changes in public policy following shifts in public opinion.

If these later quotes were the extent of criticism on the role of public opinion and survey research in liberal democracy, I would not be up here today discussing what soon follows in this address. Unfortunately, however, we live a world in which many of the institutions of democracy and society are under attack.

It is important to start by recognizing that AAPOR is a scientific organization. Whether you are a quantitative or qualitative researcher, a political pollster or developer of official statistics, a sociologist or a political scientist, someone who works for a commercial entity or nonprofit, we are all survey scientists, and we come together as a great community of scientists within AAPOR, no matter our differences.

And so we, AAPOR, should be as concerned as any other scientific community regarding the current environment where science is under attack, devalued, and delegitimized. It is estimated that since the 2016 election, the federal policy has moved to censor, or misrepresent, or curtail and suppress scientific data and discoveries over 200 times, according to the Sabin Center at Columbia University. Not only is this a concern to AAPOR as a community of scientists, but we should be concerned as well on the impact of these attacks on public opinion itself.

Just as concerning is the attack on democratic information, in general. Farrell and Schneier argue that there are two key types of knowledge in democracy, common and contested. And while we should be free to argue and disagree with policy choices, our pick of democratic leaders, and even many of the rules and mores that guide us as a society, what is called contested knowledge, what cannot be up for debate is the common knowledge of democracy, for example, the legitimacy of the electoral process itself, or the validity of data attained by the Census, or even more so, I would argue, that public opinion does not tell us what the public thinks.

As the many quotes I provided earlier attest to, democracy is dependent upon a reliable and nonideological measure of the will of the people. For more than a half century and beyond, survey research been the principal and predominant vehicle by which such knowledge is generated.

And yet, we are on that doorstep where common knowledge is becoming contested. We are entering, I fear, a new phase of poll delegitimization. I am not here to advocate any political ideology and it is critical for pollsters to remain within the confines of science. Yet there has been a sea change in how polls are discussed by the current administration. To constantly call out polls for being fake is to delegitimize public opinion itself and is a threat to our profession.

Worse still, many call out polls as mere propaganda (see Joondeph, 2018). Such statements are more so a direct attack on our science, our field, and frankly, the entire AAPOR community. And yet even worse is for anyone to actually rig poll results. Perhaps nothing may undermine the science and legitimacy of polling more.

More pernicious still, we are on the precipice of an age where faking anything is possible. The technology now exists to fake actual videos of politicians, or anyone for that matter, and to create realistic false statements. The faking of poll results is merely in lockstep with these developments.

With attacks on science at an all-time high in the modern age, including attacks on the science of surveys; with denigration of common knowledge, the glue that holds democracy together, including denunciation on the reliability of official statistics; with slander on polling that goes beyond deliberation on the validity of good methods but rather attacks good methods as junk, as propaganda, and as fake news; and worse of all, a future that, by all indications, will if anything include the increased frequency of fake polls, and fake data, well, what are we, AAPOR, to do?

We must respond. We must react. And, we must speak out. What does this mean, exactly? First, AAPOR must be able to respond. Specifically, AAPOR must have vehicles and avenues of communication and the tools by which it can communicate. Second, AAPOR must know how to respond. That is to say, AAPOR must have effective and timely means of responding. We are in an every minute of the day news cycle. AAPOR must adapt to this environment and maximize its impact by speaking effectively within this communication environment. And third, AAPOR must, quite simply, have the willpower to respond. AAPOR is a fabulous member organization, providing great service to its members in terms of education, a code of ethics, guidelines for best practices and promotions of transparency and diversity in the field of survey research. But we have to do more. We have to learn to professionalize our communication and advocate for our members and our field. There are no such thing as sidelines anymore. We must do our part to defend survey science, polling, and the very role of public opinion in a functioning democracy.

This might seem to many of you like a fresh idea, and bold new step for AAPOR. But in fact, there has been a common and consistent call for improved communication abilities, communicative outreach, and advocacy by many past Presidents, from Diane Colasanto to Nancy Belden to Andy Kohut.

AAPOR is a wonderful organization, and in my biased opinion, the best professional organization I know. How have we responded to the call of past Presidents? I would say, we responded with vigor, with energy, and with passion. But we are but a volunteer organization of social scientists. And so, we make task forces. We write reports. These reports are well researched, well written, and at the same time, I would argue, do not work effectively to create impact in the modern communication environment.

We have taken one small step to ameliorate this, with the report on polling in the 2016 election, which was publicly released via a quite successful live Facebook video event. But we can still do better. We need to be more timely for one, as that event occurred 177 days after the election, when far fewer people were listening, and the narrative was largely already written. And we need to find ways to make such events have greater reach and impact. And of course, we need more than just one event every four years.

I have been proud to have been a part of, and even be the chair of, a number of excellent task force reports. But we cannot, I submit, continue to respond only with task force reports. AAPOR is comprised of the greatest survey researchers in the world. But it is not comprised of professional communication strategists, plain and simple. We need help, and we need professional help.

In the growth of many organizations, there comes a time when the next step must be taken. The ASA many years ago, for example, hired a full time strategic communications firm. Other organizations, including the NCA, APSA, and others, chose instead to hire their own full time professional communication strategist.

AAPOR has desired to better advocate for itself for decades. We recognize that we have to get into the fight, that there are again no more things as sidelines. And we have put forward a commendable effort in this regard, building educational resources for journalists, and writing excellent reports on elections, best practices, sugging and frugging, data falsification, and other issues. But we need to do more, and in the context of the world outside of us, we need to speak a language that resonates with journalists, political elites, and perhaps most importantly the public.

I want to stop right here and make it clear, that the return on investment on such efforts is not going to be quick. And the goal here is not to improve response rates, though I would like that very much! No, it is not likely that any efforts in any near term reverses trends in nonresponse.

It may very well be that our efforts only slow or at best stop the decline. But that would be an important development. The Washington Post says that democracy dies in darkness. If I may, I would argue that AAPOR must say, democracy dies in silence, when the vehicle for public opinion, surveys, has been twisted to be distrusted by the very people who need it most, ordinary citizens. For the most part, AAPOR has been silent. We can be silent no more.

This year, Executive Council has deliberated the issues outlined in this address, and we have chosen to act. The road will be long, and at this time, I cannot tell you where it will lead. But I can tell you our intentions and aspirations. We have begun to execute a 5 point plan that I present here to you.

First, AAPOR Executive Council developed and released a request for proposals for professional strategic communication services. Five highly regarded firms responded. After careful deliberation and in person meetings with the best of these firms, we have chosen Stanton Communications to help AAPOR become a more professionalized association. Our goals in the short term are as follows.

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