Polls and Public Opinion

What is the “Public”?

Consider some images: a crowd at a baseball game, protesters marching with signs and banners, authors of letters to a newspaper, strikers on a picket line, parents at a school board meeting, supporters at an election rally, citizens of a country, members of a special-interest organization (like the ACLU), commentators on a blog, a thousand adults interviewed for a Gallup Poll. In political and social psychologist [Page 1091]Floyd Allport's (inelegant) language, these are “multi-individual situations” in which people may express themselves. But they differ in significant ways. The public is displayed variously as a disconnected assemblage—a “mass”—or a unified group with a common purpose (e.g., crowd, spectators vs. campaign supporters, protesters). It is a group whose existence depends on a particular event (e.g., spectators, meeting attendees, strikers), or individuals whose connection spans space and time, such as members of a “special-interest” organization. Some publics are formed by participants' deliberate action (e.g., attending a meeting) and others depend upon external agency (a polling firm gathering interviews). In short, the public is portrayed variously as more or less allied, more or less inclusive, more or less transitory, more or less volitional. The modes and quality of communication also vary widely. People express themselves in cacophonous or melodic tones, in concert with others or alone, spontaneously or prompted, openly or anonymously, with or without much knowledge and consideration.

These varied images underlie conflicting views about polls and public opinion. Those who advocate the use of polls envision an inclusive process that goes beyond specific situations or involved publics. The barriers to membership are few; one need not demonstrate any particular knowledge or interest, nor act in support of beliefs, nor join with others to affect policy. To be a member of the public, one need only agree to express confidential opinions on questions put by the polling organization. By contrast, those who are opposed to polling have a more exclusive, issue-specific view of the public. Membership costs are higher: belonging depends on the degree of one's engagement with a particular policy question, one's association with others whose level of engagement is also high, and one's willingness to be identified as “taking a side” and acting on belief. According to this view, polls produce top-down “manufactured publics,” not genuine manifestations of public opinion. But for George Gallup and other polling pioneers, polls actually empower individual citizens who otherwise would find it difficult to be heard. Because pollsters seek a “cross-section” of society to interview, the advantages of class or education or special interest that ordinarily facilitate political participation are overcome by polls.

What, then, is the real, genuine public? An often-cited exchange at the American Sociological Association meetings in the late 1940s summarizes the argument. Two eminent social scientists on this panel—Herbert Blumer and Theodore Newcomb—represented the two schools of thought just described. Blumer first attacked the idea of polling because, he argued, public opinion is rooted in interest groups that are not captured in cross-section samples. For Blumer, and many theorists who continue to cite his argument, polls construct an artificial public by aggregating the views of randomly sampled individuals. Thus, Blumer argued, polls are blind to the empirical reality of the organization of the public in social ties among members.

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