By having citizens partake in public opinion polls politicians can accurately represent their citizens and gain new insight to where this country needs to go to move forward. I believe that we do come closer to becoming a democratic nation when we give voice to the people and actually hear these voices. Do you believe that these polls are beneficial to society? Can they be dangerous and how so?
Monday, January 30, 2012
Public Opinion does Matter
This week our group was asked to go dive into chapters 12-24 and 21 was one of the chapters that happened to resonate with me the most. It seems that as we continue to expand and grow as a country media enables us to get more connected. One of the ways that people are able to feel as though they belong to a democratic country is through the use of surveys and public opinion polls. When I worked for Fox News there would be polls available to viewers so that they could say what they were thinking. I believe that these polls do give us a social voice that we have never had before and are a part of understanding what the people want which is truly part of being a democracy.
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Did you hear about the survey results where people reported that they were tired of all the surveys? I kept thinking of that silly headline when I was reading this article. Here's the link: http://headlinesthatsuck.com/screenshots/survey-says-americans-getting-tired-of-surveys/
ReplyDeleteSurveys and polls are beneficial in terms of gathering public opinion. I think it is how people use those statistics to advance certain causes within the public. I think businesses and organizations can twist stats to say what ever they want. On needs to be careful when reducing the public to a set of polling numbers. Stats are useful but we cannot confuse correlation of high poll numbers with enacting policies that affect large populations. Example: Public sentiment towards Islam and Muslims and policies regarding those populations and their practices. We must not infringe on the rights of others just to satisfy the majority of people.
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