"When you add it up, here's the math that counts. Trumpworld is a Mobius strip, with no exit ramp to reality.”
Nancy Lederman, posted as a comment to
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/upshot/how-one-19-year-old-illinois-man-is-distorting-national-polling-averages.html?comments
Showing posts with label poll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poll. Show all posts
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Friday, March 29, 2013
Quote of the day - gun control and control of Congress
"However, the issue is no more how gun-control legislation will curb gun violence. The real concerns are whether the American legislative system is too crippled to take an action and whether vested interests of powerful lobbies can indefinitely hold hostage the legitimate expectations of the American people."
- M. Imran Hayee, "Lawmakers must rise above politics and craft sensible gun-control laws",
Duluth News Tribune, 2013-03-29.
When I accessed the article for its web address, I noticed at the top an ad:
"Gun control? Vote Here Now!"
I decided to at least check the ad out. It is provided by Newsmax. The title is "Gun Control Laws from Obama? Vote Now in Urgent Poll." The questions are rather balanced, although the one on the Second Amendment uses wording not in the Second Amendment. Newsmax says it shares its results with a list of major news outlets.
To have your responses counted, you must provide your email address and ZIP Code. I really don't care for polls, requiring my email address made not taking the poll even easier.
I wonder if a similar ad was posted by Google AdSense on this entry.
- M. Imran Hayee, "Lawmakers must rise above politics and craft sensible gun-control laws",
Duluth News Tribune, 2013-03-29.
When I accessed the article for its web address, I noticed at the top an ad:
"Gun control? Vote Here Now!"
I decided to at least check the ad out. It is provided by Newsmax. The title is "Gun Control Laws from Obama? Vote Now in Urgent Poll." The questions are rather balanced, although the one on the Second Amendment uses wording not in the Second Amendment. Newsmax says it shares its results with a list of major news outlets.
To have your responses counted, you must provide your email address and ZIP Code. I really don't care for polls, requiring my email address made not taking the poll even easier.
I wonder if a similar ad was posted by Google AdSense on this entry.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
More info on poll linking knowledge with news source
I sent "Circular search for poll results on what you know and what you watch" to Fairleigh Dickinson University's Public Mind and received a nice reply from Prof. Peter J. Wooley, founding Executive Director of Public Mind.
I am not sure why I only saw one page of the eleven page report last week. Maybe I had fiddled with my preferences in Firefox so that a web page now is automatically opening an associated PDF file.
I have now read the full report. I also read the article that Prof. Wooley wrote with his colleague Dan Cassini, see "Fox News Does Not Make You Dumb: Researchers Respond to Critics", Huffington Post, 2012-05-15. Interestingly, when I read the article for my first post in this series I saw no reference to this rebuttal, and that article was posted a week after Wooley and Cassini's article.
The numbers that Public Mind published were weighted numbers that considered the correct answer and some demographics about the respondents. Thus, the results were all under 2.0, leading rushed readers like me to assume that most people only got at most two answers correctly. You can see all the questions at http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/final.pdf.
I am a bit confused that they mention eight questions in the tables but list nine questions in the text. I answered seven correctly, not remembering who "won" the Presidential Primary in New Hampshire and what the deal was to pass the payroll tax deduction extension.
However, the overall results were dismal. Regardless of political leanings, 62 percent of the respondents answered four or less questions correctly, with 57 percent and 63 percent for Democrats and Republicans, respectively. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from that last difference. But, if the overall sample is representative of our voters, over half the eligible voters not being able to answer half or less of some standard questions about the news does not bear well for our democracy.
We can't attribute these results to TV news. Seventy-two percent of the respondents claim to get some of their news from a local newspaper, and the spread according to political leaning is only four percent to either side. Maybe it is that too many of us filter the news to our own biases.
Oh, well! There's nothing new about biased interpretation of events. It's been going on in this country for over 250 years! We have survived this long, maybe we'll get some leaders now and then who can stand above partisanship and see farther than some narrow interests.
I am not sure why I only saw one page of the eleven page report last week. Maybe I had fiddled with my preferences in Firefox so that a web page now is automatically opening an associated PDF file.
I have now read the full report. I also read the article that Prof. Wooley wrote with his colleague Dan Cassini, see "Fox News Does Not Make You Dumb: Researchers Respond to Critics", Huffington Post, 2012-05-15. Interestingly, when I read the article for my first post in this series I saw no reference to this rebuttal, and that article was posted a week after Wooley and Cassini's article.
The numbers that Public Mind published were weighted numbers that considered the correct answer and some demographics about the respondents. Thus, the results were all under 2.0, leading rushed readers like me to assume that most people only got at most two answers correctly. You can see all the questions at http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/final.pdf.
I am a bit confused that they mention eight questions in the tables but list nine questions in the text. I answered seven correctly, not remembering who "won" the Presidential Primary in New Hampshire and what the deal was to pass the payroll tax deduction extension.
However, the overall results were dismal. Regardless of political leanings, 62 percent of the respondents answered four or less questions correctly, with 57 percent and 63 percent for Democrats and Republicans, respectively. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from that last difference. But, if the overall sample is representative of our voters, over half the eligible voters not being able to answer half or less of some standard questions about the news does not bear well for our democracy.
We can't attribute these results to TV news. Seventy-two percent of the respondents claim to get some of their news from a local newspaper, and the spread according to political leaning is only four percent to either side. Maybe it is that too many of us filter the news to our own biases.
Oh, well! There's nothing new about biased interpretation of events. It's been going on in this country for over 250 years! We have survived this long, maybe we'll get some leaders now and then who can stand above partisanship and see farther than some narrow interests.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Circular search for poll results on what you know and what you watch
I followed up on my suspicions of the poll results in "Quote of the day - Fox 'news'" by clicking the link from "No News Is Better Than Fox News, Finds Mean Old Science", Don Hamel, Addicting Info, 2012-05-23, to "updated study from Fairleigh Dickinson University". That page gave only two of the questions: “Which party has the greatest number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives?” and a question about the deal linking the payroll tax cut and the Keystone XL pipeline.
At the bottom of the page is a box containing "Methodology, questions, and tables always on the web at http://publicmind.fdu.edu." That takes me to the home page of Public Mind. The links for each reference to the "What you know depends on what you watch" study take me back to the same PDF file. My suspicions are still unsatisfied.
I'll send links to this blog to publicmind@fdu.edu. If I get in additional information, I'll post it as soon as I can. Then we may see how well we fare on this poll.
Update: I received a reply from Public Mind. See "More info on poll linking knowledge with news source".
At the bottom of the page is a box containing "Methodology, questions, and tables always on the web at http://publicmind.fdu.edu." That takes me to the home page of Public Mind. The links for each reference to the "What you know depends on what you watch" study take me back to the same PDF file. My suspicions are still unsatisfied.
I'll send links to this blog to publicmind@fdu.edu. If I get in additional information, I'll post it as soon as I can. Then we may see how well we fare on this poll.
Update: I received a reply from Public Mind. See "More info on poll linking knowledge with news source".
Quote of the day - Fox "news"
"Fox News is to information what Big Macs are to weight loss."
- "No News Is Better Than Fox News, Finds Mean Old Science", Don Hamel, Addicting Info, 2012-05-23
As cute as this quote is and as intriguing as the poll may be, I'm suspicious of reading too much into the results. The average correct answers were under two, out of nine questions, whether the respondents got their news from Fox News, NPR, or Jon Stewart's Daily Show.
- "No News Is Better Than Fox News, Finds Mean Old Science", Don Hamel, Addicting Info, 2012-05-23
As cute as this quote is and as intriguing as the poll may be, I'm suspicious of reading too much into the results. The average correct answers were under two, out of nine questions, whether the respondents got their news from Fox News, NPR, or Jon Stewart's Daily Show.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Having your cake and eating it too!
"For example, 53% of Americans believe the debt and deficits should be cut significantly... but the same percentage agrees that taxes should not be raised on anyone.
Similarly, 53% of Americans think that the influence of banks and corporations should be reined in... but that regulations on businesses should be pared back."
- "New Poll: Americans Now Think Economy Favors Super-Rich", Henry Blodget, Daily Ticker, 2011-11-08
Similarly, 53% of Americans think that the influence of banks and corporations should be reined in... but that regulations on businesses should be pared back."
- "New Poll: Americans Now Think Economy Favors Super-Rich", Henry Blodget, Daily Ticker, 2011-11-08
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)