Polls, Pollsters, and Public Opinion
A Guide for Decision-Makers

The book combines multiple disciples into an applied analytic framework to aid the public opinion analyst and pollster.

Clifford Young (Author), Kathryn Ziemer (Author)

9781108479554, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 July 2024

200 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.476 kg

A vast literature exists on theories of public opinion - how to measure, analyze, predict, and influence it; however, there is no synthesis of best practices for interpreting public opinion: existing knowledge is disparate and spread across many disciplines. Polls, Pollsters, and Public Opinion presents a systematic analytical approach for understanding, predicting, and engaging public opinion. It tells the story through the eyes of the pollster and draws an analytical road map for examining public opinion, both conceptually and practically. Providing a theoretical and conceptual foundation, as well as debunking popular myths, this book delves into the science of polling, offering tools analysts can use to assess the quality of polls. It also introduces methods that can be used to predict elections and other socio-political outcomes while understanding the nuances of messaging, engaging, and moving public opinion.

1. The Three-Hatted Pollster
Part I Fundamentals of Public Opinion: 2. What is Public Opinion?
3. Attitude Formation at the Individual Level
4. When Public Opinion is Stable and When it is Not
Part II. The Pollster as Data Scientist: 5. Understanding Bias and Error
6. Assessing a Single Poll in the 2016 US Presidential Election
7. The Case of Grexit and Assessing the Polls in Aggregate
Part III. The Pollster as Fortune Teller: 8. Cognitive Biases in Prediction
9. Triangulated Election Prediction
10. Public Opinion as a Decision Input for Other Outcomes
Part IV. The Pollster as Spin Doctor: 11. Engaging Public Opinion: Theory and Practice
12. Communicating in the 2022 Brazilian Presidential Election
13. The Pollster in Society.

Subject Areas: Social research & statistics [JHBC]