1
The Media and Their Use of
Opinion Polls: Reflecting and
Shaping Public Opinion
Jesper Strömbäck
Introduction
The histories of mass media, public opinion and opinion polling have
always been closely intertwined. Before the invention of scientific opinion
polling, both political leaders and lay people used media coverage
as a proxy for public opinion, while in addition and after the invention
of opinion polling, the media’s use of opinion polls has become an
important part of their coverage of politics in general and of election
campaigns in particular.
But do the media mainly reflect or shape public opinion, in particular
with respect to their use of opinion polls? This question is ultimately at
the heart of this volume.
While straightforward, it is, however, not an easy question to answer.
There are at least six reasons for this. First, public opinion ‘continues
to be one of the fuzziest terms in the social sciences’ (Donsbach
& Traugott 2008, p. 1). As noted by Key (1964, p. 8), ‘To speak with
precision of public opinion is a task not unlike coming to grips with
the Holy Ghost.’ If the core concept of public opinion is contested and
fuzzy, it is consequently complicated to measure and to disentangle the
media’s role in reflecting or shaping it. Second, for many ‘the phenomena
of public opinion and mass media are largely conflated’ (Herbst
1998, p. 5), making it difficult to pull them apart and differentiate from
each other. Third, while opinion polling is the best methodology yet
invented to investigate public opinion, it is fraught with difficulties
related to, for example, sampling and question ambiguity, wording and
context (Weisberg 2008). It is also a methodology that can be used as
1
2 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
well as misused (Traugott 2008). Hence, it cannot be taken for granted
that responses in an opinion poll represent true public opinion, if a
true public opinion even exists on a particular matter (Bishop 2005;
Moore 2008). Fourth, the processes of shaping media content are complex
and involve influences from many sets of actors, making it difficult
to determine the precise influence of the public or even the media’s audiences
(Shoemaker & Reese 1996). Fifth, while research on agenda setting,
priming and framing has shown that the media can exert considerable
influence over the public, all such processes are highly contingent upon,
for example, the media, the message, audience characteristics and contextual
factors (Nabi & Oliver 2009). Hence, while it can be assumed
that the media, at least to some extent, take public opinion into consideration
when covering politics and current affairs, and that the public,
at least to some extent, are influenced by the media’s coverage of politics
and current affairs, this does not provide a satisfactory answer as
to whether the media mainly reflect or shape public opinion. Sixth,
and finally, there is not yet enough research on factors influencing
the media’s use of opinion polls and the effects of published opinion
polls.
There is, however, no doubt that public opinion is a crucial concept
in democracies, and that opinion polls are ubiquitous in the
media’s coverage of politics in general and of election campaigns in
particular. This combination makes it highly important to further investigate
the media’s use of opinion polls as well as their antecedents and
consequences, and is why we decided to edit this volume.
This chapter will proceed as follows. In the next section we will analyze
the importance of public opinion in representative democracies,
and discuss the linkage between public opinion and opinion polling.
In the following section we will review research on the media’s use of
opinion polls. As will be detailed, research suggests that polls are ubiquitous
in the media’s coverage of politics and current affairs, particularly
during election campaigns. Based on this review, the section thereafter
will outline a framework for understanding why the media show such
great interest in opinion polls. We will then summarize the main results
of this review, before introducing the chapters in this volume.
Public opinion: The main currency in representative
democracies
To understand the role of public opinion in representative democracies,
it may be helpful to return to the origins of democracy. The term
Jesper Strömbäck 3
itself was coined in Ancient Greece from the words demos, the people,
and kratos, to rule. Literally speaking, democracy thus means rule by
the people. In Ancient Greece, all male citizens were also entitled – and
expected – to participate in the ruling of the city, with the main method
for selecting people for public duties being lotteries (Dahl 1998; Manin
1997). Those who were selected carried out their duties for one year
only, and they were not allowed to occupy the same position more than
once. This was done to ensure that as many people as possible over a
lifetime served both as governor and governed; to ensure that everyone
had an equal chance of being selected for office; and to avoid political
power becoming centralized with a permanent class of rulers. The
procedures were intended to ensure that democracy indeed was rule by
the people – although ‘the people’ were narrowly defined and excluded
those under 30 years, women and slaves (Manin 1997).
All the early systems of democratic rule in Greece and other places
were, however, confined to smaller city-states or communities. As highlighted
by Dahl (1998, p. 17; original emphasis), they also lacked what is
today considered ‘basic political institutions: a national parliament composed
of elected representatives, and popularly chosen local governments that
were ultimately subordinate to the national government. A system combining
democracy at local levels with a popularly elected parliament at
the top level had yet to be invented.’
Size matters, however, and as nation-states replaced city-states and
societies increased in size, direct democracy was no longer an option.
The ideal of direct democracy had to face and conform to Dahl’s ‘law of
time and numbers: The more citizens a democratic unit contains, the less that
citizens can participate directly in government decisions and the more that
they must delegate authority to others’ (1998, p. 109). The representative
form of democracy, where the people elect representatives and transfer
to them the authority and legitimacy to take binding decisions, was the
answer to this democratic dilemma.
Whether representative democracy represents a necessary evil when
direct democracy is not possible, or whether it represents a form of
democracy that is actually superior to direct democracy, is, however, a
matter of contention. There are in addition several different normative
models of democracy, positioning the role of the people versus representatives
of the people and the role of public opinion differently. While
different theorists use different terminologies, the three most prominent
models of democracy are elite or competitive democracy (Schumpeter
1975), participatory democracy (Pateman 1970) and deliberative democracy
(Elster 1998). Although an exhaustive discussion about these and other
4 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
Table 1.1 Normative models of democracy and their central mechanisms for
securing the common good
Competitive
democracy
Participatory
democracy
Deliberative
democracy
Central
mechanism for
securing the
primacy of the
common good
Competition
between political
elites in effective
competitive
elections
Citizen
participation in
political and civic
life, both outside
and within parties
Deliberative
discussions among
all sections of the
public and their
representatives
models of democracy is beyond the scope of this chapter (for overviews,
see Clawson & Oxley 2008; Held 2006; Strömbäck 2005), the central
mechanisms for securing the primacy of the public good according to
each model are summarized in Table 1.1.
Normative differences notwithstanding, most theorists agree that
direct democracy is not feasible in large-scale democracies. Modern
democracies are – save for referendums – largely representative democracies.
In these, Sartori (1987, p. 108) reminds us, ‘elections do not enact
policies; elections establish, rather, who will enact them. Elections do
not decide issues; they decide, rather, who will decide issues.’ The original
understanding of democracy as rule by the people is, however, still
present, as those who are elected are expected to represent the people
and take public opinion into consideration when making decisions.
Their legitimacy hinges on the perception that they are responsive to,
and act as representatives of, the public and public opinion.
In other words, the importance of public opinion in representative
democracy has its origins in the understanding of political leaders as representatives
for the public that ideally should enact policies and decide
issues for themselves. In Splichal’s (2001, p. 24) words, ‘Whereas premodern
states legitimized their origin and development with the divine
will, in modern democracies this function is largely assumed by public
opinion. It is indispensable to the legitimacy of governments that
claim their power is based on the consent of the governed.’ From this
perspective, disregarding public opinion equals disregarding the public.
The problem of representation
If political leaders in representative democracies are supposed to
represent the people and public opinion, this raises two crucial
questions. First, what does ‘the public’ refer to, and second, what
does ‘representation’ refer to? To begin with the first question, and
Jesper Strömbäck 5
broadly following Sartori (1987, p. 22), at least six conceptualizations
of ‘the public’ in the context of democratic representation can be
distinguished:
1. the public as including literally everybody;
2. the public as an undetermined large part, a great many;
3. the public as organized interests in non-governmental organizations
and interest groups;
4. the public as including a qualified majority of the people;
5. the public as including a simple majority of the people;
6. the public as a party’s or elected official’s constituency.
The problem for political leaders with the ambition to represent public
opinion, then, is not only to find out what public opinion thinks – a
major challenge in itself – but also to navigate through different conceptualizations
of the public and hence of public opinion. Different
publics may furthermore hold opposing views. Hence, even if political
leaders could have perfect information about the opinion of different
publics, they would not necessarily be able to represent the opinion of
all publics.
With the invention of scientific opinion polls, the predominant conceptualization
of public opinion has, however, become the view held by
the majority or plurality of people responding in opinion polls. If an
opinion poll shows that the majority or plurality approves or disapproves
of the president, or prefers policy A to policy B, or thinks that
X and Y are the most important issues facing the country, then this is
taken to represent public opinion, and political leaders are expected to
follow or at least seriously consider public opinion in this specific sense
(Geer 1996).
The problem here is not only that opinion polls do not necessarily
show what the public think (Bishop 2005; Clawson & Oxley 2008;
Moore 2008) but also that it is not clear what it really means to represent
public opinion. This leads us to the second question, that is, what
‘representation’ refers to.
According to Pitkin’s classic account (1967), several different views
of representation can be identified. The first is the formalistic view,
according to which ‘a representative is someone who has been authorized
to act’ (p. 38). This view of representation is relevant insofar
as it legitimizes the taking of authoritative decisions by popularly
elected politicians. The second view of representation is descriptive representation
or ‘standing for’, which ‘depends on the representative’s
6 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
characteristics, on what he is or is like, on being something rather than
doing something’ (p. 61). In the context of representing public opinion,
this view implies that representatives should share and follow the views
of public opinion. The third view of representation is symbolic representation,
where different objects ‘stand for’ something else. Examples
might be a flag, standing for a country, or a party leader, standing for
a party. The fourth view is representation as ‘acting for’, described by
Pitkin (1967, p. 113) as ‘an activity in behalf of, in the interest of,
as the agent of, someone else’. According to this view, what matters
is not whether representatives mirror those represented, but whether
the actions of representatives are taken in the interest of those who are
represented.
In the context of representing public opinion, these different views of
representation form a classic controversy: Should representatives always
follow and be bound by public opinion, or should representatives be free
to act as seems best to them in the pursuit of the public and the public’s
interest? Considering that public opinion is most often perceived as
aggregate responses in opinion polls, should political leaders always follow
opinion polls regardless of whether public opinion is informed or
uninformed, consistent or inconsistent, democratically enlightened or
not enlightened? Or should political leaders – while taking the results of
opinion polls into account – be free to pursue other policies or activities
if other information suggests that this may be a better approach to act
on behalf of the public?
While there may not be a universal answer to these questions, they
highlight the complexities of the relationships between the public,
public opinion, opinion polls, political representation and political
leadership. The premise in most public discussion following the presentation
of results of opinion polls is that political leaders should follow
the polls, as disregarding them explicitly or implicitly is considered
as disregarding the public that political leaders are supposed to represent.
‘Followership’, as summarized by Geer (1996, p. 7), has become
‘the order of the day’. Such views are, however, too narrow and simplified.
First, there are several different notions of what the public is.
Second, responses in opinion polls cannot a priori be assumed to accurately
reflect true public opinion, if a true public opinion even exists.
Third, even if there were to be no contradictions between different
notions of the public, there was such a thing as a public opinion and
the polls accurately reflected this public opinion, it is not self-evident
that political leaders should always follow the polls. If political leaders
have more knowledge and information than the public, then not
Jesper Strömbäck 7
following opinion polls may in fact be a better way to act on behalf of
the public interest.
This is not to say that political leaders always should, or should not,
follow opinion polls. It is only to say that to presume that political leaders
should always follow the results of opinion polls may not necessarily
lead to better political representation.
The media’s use of opinion polls
The many complexities involved in the relationships between the public,
public opinion, opinion polls and political representation notwithstanding,
opinion polls have become a staple of both politics and the
media coverage of politics (Frankovic 1998). Focusing on the media, the
history of media covering or doing polling can be traced as far back as
1820 (Atkin & Gaudino 1984; Brettschneider 2008; Gallup & Rae 1940).
It was, however, not until the invention of scientific polling in the 1930s
that poll coverage began to take its present shape.
Before the 1936 election, the media and others relied on straw polls.
The 1936 US presidential election changed this. Before that, the magazine
Literary Digest was the most prominent medium in terms of doing
straw polls and predicting the election outcome. It sent out millions of
ballots, asking people to send in their votes. In all elections between
1916 and 1932, the magazine accurately predicted the winner based on
this methodology.
In the 1936 election, Literary Digest failed miserably, however, predicting
that the Republican candidate Alfred A. Landon would get
57 per cent of the major party vote over the Democratic candidate
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Instead, Roosevelt won the election with
62 per cent of the major party vote (Gallup & Rae 1940, pp. 40–43). The
election result was, however, accurately predicted by a young pioneer
in opinion polling, George Gallup, who was one of the first to employ
scientific sampling. He showed that a sample of just a few thousand
respondents, scientifically sampled to represent the overall population,
was superior to a straw poll, despite the fact that about 2.3 million
respondents participated in the straw poll.
Since the beginning, newspapers were among the subscribers of the
opinion polls conducted by Gallup’s American Institute of Public Opinion.
When polling organizations were subsequently formed in other
countries, the same pattern often followed (Petersson 2008). During the
1940s and 1950s, the news media usually subscribed to results from
polling institutes, but since the 1960s it has become more common for
8 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
the media to sponsor or conduct their own polls (Brettschneider 2008).
Thus, ‘from the very beginning, there has been a symbiotic relationship
between pollsters and journalists’ (Traugott 2009, p. 4).
Reviewing research on the media’s use of opinion polls, there is
no doubt that polls are frequently covered in the news. The lack of
longitudinal and comparative research makes it difficult to draw firm
conclusions about changes over time and similarities or differences
across countries, but research from a wide set of countries confirms that
polls are frequently covered by the media, particularly during election
campaigns. In Germany, the number of poll reports in a sample of newspapers
before each federal election increased from 65 in 1980 to 651 in
1994 (Brettschneider 1997, 2008). In Sweden, the number of poll reports
in the most important national TV news programs and newspapers went
from 98 in 1998 to 117 in 2006 (Strömbäck 2009), while in Israel the
number of poll reports in a sample of 15 newspapers increased from just
16 in 1969 to 409 in 1988 (Weimann 1990; see also Sheafer, Weimann
& Tsfati 2008). In the USA, the number of publicly released trial heat
polls during the general election campaign increased from 27 in 1984
to 245 in 2000 (Traugott 2005), while the number of media-sponsored
election polls almost tripled between 1976 and 1988 (Ladd & Benson
1992). Research in other countries such as Canada (Ferguson & de Clercy
2005; Gidengil 2008), Australia (Tiffen 2008), South Africa (Gouws & de
Beer 2008) and Italy (Roncarolo 2008) confirms that polls have become
more common, or that they are common, in election news. In addition,
research suggests that it has become even more common for journalists
to just refer to ‘polls’, without actually presenting any new poll results
(Frankovic 2005). Thus, in one form or another, opinion polls are ubiquitous,
leading Patterson (2005, p. 722) to argue that the media’s use
of opinion polls ‘extend beyond reason’, while Weimann (1990) writes
about an ‘obsession to forecast’.
A matter of both quantity and quality
The question of the media’s coverage of opinion polls is however a matter
not only of quantity but also of quality. Since opinion polling is a
method for investigating people’s opinions, the quality of an opinion
poll cannot be taken for granted. Neither can it be evaluated without
some basic information about the poll. This is why organizations such
as World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), European Society
for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) and American Association
for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) have guidelines pertaining to what
Jesper Strömbäck 9
kind of information should be included when the media cover opinion
polls. As stated in the ESOMAR/WAPOR International Code for Practice for
the Publication of Public Opinion Poll Results:
The validity and value of public opinion polls depend on three main
considerations: (i) the nature of the research techniques used and the
efficiency with which they are applied, (ii) the honesty and objectivity
of the research organization carrying out the study, (iii) the way in
which the findings are presented and the uses to which they are put.
(ESOMAR/WAPOR 2010, p. 12)
Consequently, in this code for practice ESOMAR/WAPOR writes that any
time public opinion polls are published in print media, ‘these should
always be accompanied by a clear statement of: (a) the name of the
research organization carrying out the survey; (b) the universe effectively
represented (i.e., who was interviewed); (c) the achieved sample
size and its geographical coverage; (d) the dates of fieldwork; (e) the sampling
method used [ ... ]; (f) the method by which the information was
collected [ ... ]; and (g) the relevant questions asked’ (p. 14). The requirements
for broadcast media are more liberal, but they are also required
to cover points (a) through (d). Similar guidelines are included in the
AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics & Practice, with the important addition
that the media should also disclose information about ‘the precision of
the findings, including estimates of sampling error’ (p. 4).
Despite these codes of conduct, research on the extent to which the
media include the necessary information shows that the media often fail
at this (Brettschneider 2008; Ferguson & de Clercy 2005; Smith & Verrall
1985; Strömbäck 2009; Welch 2002). It is also common for journalists,
when covering polls, to discuss changes that are within the margin of
error as if they were substantial (Traugott 2008) and that they make
unsupported causal attributions when they try to explain results in opinion
polls (Bauman & Lavrakas 2000). What journalists or pundits in the
media may present as factual explanations for changes in or for the state
of public opinion, as measured by polls, are oftentimes nothing more
than speculations.
Most of this research focuses on so-called trial heat or horse race
polls, that is, polls about people’s party preferences or voting intentions.
While important, particularly during election campaigns, there
are other kinds of polls as well. Among those are polls focused on issues
or policies, candidate traits, and performances in debates or other mediated
appearances. In many cases the media sponsor the polls, but in
10 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
other cases polls are used as tools for political actors in their attempts to
manage the news.
In either case, the major media focus on opinion polls calls for an
explanation. Why do the media devote so much attention to opinion
polls?
Towards a framework for understanding the media’s
interest in opinion polls
To understand the news media’s use of opinion polls – both those they
have commissioned themselves and those presented by various interest
groups and political actors – it is imperative to understand the impact
of news values on news selection processes and the logic of news production
in commercial news media. While it normatively may be true
that the most important function of news journalism in democracies is
to ‘provide people with the information they need to be free and selfgoverning’
(Kovach & Rosenstiel 2001, p. 12; see also McQuail 2003;
Strömbäck 2005), the fact is that most news journalism is produced by
journalists working for commercial media companies, and for commercial
media companies the ultimate goal is not primarily the public good.
It is rather to generate profits.
In order to do so, they have to be successful when competing on
each of the four markets where commercial media are present. These
are the market for investors, where investors offer capital and direction in
exchange for future profits; the market for advertisers, where advertisers
offer advertising revenue in exchange for audience attention; the market
for news, where news sources offer information that can be transformed
into news in exchange for audience attention; and the market for audiences,
where audiences offer their attention in exchange for news and
other media content (McManus 1994, p. 60).
The most important of these markets is the audience market, not
because commercial media value news audiences higher than advertisers
or investors, but rather because success in the battle for audience
attention is a prerequisite for success in the battles for investor capital,
information that can be transformed into news and for advertising
revenue. Hence, to be successful, news journalism produced within commercial
news media has to attract as many as possible in the audience
segments that advertisers are interested in reaching. In the words of
McManus (1994, p. 85), commercial and rational news departments
‘should compete with each other to offer the least expensive mix of content
that protects the interests of sponsors and investors while garnering
Jesper Strömbäck 11
the largest audience advertisers will pay to reach’ (see also Baker 2002;
Hamilton 2004; Picard, 2005).
The tougher the competition between different news media, the more
important it becomes for them to attract as large audiences as possible
while keeping down the costs and controlling the return on investments.
Hence, while the democratic logic dictates that the news media
should focus on information that people need in order to be free and
self-governing and making sure the information is accurate, commercial
logic dictates that the news media should focus on information that
attracts as many as possible within the segments that advertisers are
interested in while keeping down the costs.
This tension is important both with respect to what news the media
cover and how they cover it. Ultimately, all news journalism is selective,
as the number of events or occurrences are too many for any
media to cover. One of the most important tasks of news journalism is
thus that of gatekeeping, defined as ‘the process of selecting, writing,
editing, positioning, scheduling, repeating and otherwise massaging
information to become news’ (Shoemaker, Vos & Reese 2009, p. 73).
To guide in this process, there are a number of news values and news
selection criteria that journalists apply. Among traditional news values
and news selection criteria are, for example, drama, visual attractiveness,
entertainment value, importance, proximity, negativity, recency,
involvement of elites and power, unexpectedness, unambiguity, continuity,
and size or the number of people affected by the news (O’Neill &
Harcup 2009; see also Campbell 2004; Gans 1980). To these traditional
news values, Allern (2002, p. 145) has added four ‘commercial news criteria’:
(1) the more resources it costs to cover an event, the less likely
it is that it will become a news story; (2) the more news sources subsidize
the news by journalistically preparing a story for publication, the
more likely it will become news; (3) the more selectively a story is distributed
and the more exclusive it is to a particular news medium, the
more likely it will become news; and (4) ‘The more a news medium’s
strategy is based on arousing sensations to catch public attention, the
greater the likelihood of a “media twist”, where entertaining elements
count more than criteria like relevance, truth and accuracy.’
On the one hand, commercial news media need news stories that deal
with important events and topics such as politics and current affairs
that are relevant to people in their role as citizens. This is important for
their legitimacy as news providers contributing positively to democracy.
On the other hand, commercial news media need news stories that are
inexpensive to cover and that are filled with attention-grabbing drama
12 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
and that are interesting to people in their role as consumers. News
focusing on opinion polls and the horse race may fulfill both criteria.
This is, however, only one side of the story. The other is related to the
relationship between news journalism and politics.
Among the criteria of newsworthiness is that the news should focus
on events that are important, relevant, affect a great number of people,
and that involve individuals or institutions with power. Consequently,
much news is focused on politics, where political actors offer information
that can be transformed into news in exchange for visibility
in the news and potential audience attention. While much research
has shown that official and elite actors outnumber other news sources
(Bennett 1990; Dimitrova & Strömbäck 2009; Manning 2001; Reich
2009; Shehata 2010), the relationship between journalists and their
political news sources is oftentimes uneasy and filled with tension.
In this relationship and ‘negotiation of newsworthiness’ (Cook 2005,
p. 102), both sides command resources on their own, but both sides also
want to control the other. Not least important, journalists oftentimes do
not want to be reduced to mouthpieces for or carriers of the messages of
their political sources. As much as they ‘rely heavily on institutionally
positioned officials for the raw materials of news’ (Lawrence 2000, p. 5),
journalists want to have and mark their independence (Shehata 2010;
Wolfsfeld & Sheafer 2006; Zaller 2001).
The more skilled in and focused on news management and pseudoevents
mainly created to attract the attention of the news media that
political actors have become (Kumar, 2007; Maltese 1994; Zoch &
Molleda 2006), the more problematic it has become for journalists to
guard their independence from political actors. When deciding what
to cover and how to cover it, journalists can follow the traditional five
‘Ws’ when writing their stories: Who, What, Where, When and Why.
In the minds of many journalists, doing so would, however, give political
actors too much influence over the news, encouraging them first
to focus more on the Why than the Who, What, Where and When
(Patterson 1993), second to cover politics with a critical or negative tone
(Farnsworth & Lichter 2011; Zaller 2001) and third to focus on news stories
where journalists have greater control over what the news is about
and how it should be framed. To capture this phenomenon, Zaller (2001,
p. 255) has suggested his ‘rule of product substitution’, according to
which ‘the more strenuously politicians challenge journalists for control
of a news jurisdiction, the more journalists will seek to develop substitute
information that the mass audience is willing to accept as news and
that gives expression to journalistic voice’. In such a context, opinion
Jesper Strömbäck 13
polls – particularly when done or sponsored by the news media – offer a
close to perfect substitution for news provided by political actors.
The media’s use of opinion polls may consequently be understood
as an example of the mediatization of politics, where the media successively
have increased their autonomy from political institutions and
actors, and where media content – according to the theory – is increasingly
shaped by media logic rather than political or partisan logic
(Asp 1986; Hjarvard 2008; Mazzoleni & Schulz 1999; Strömbäck 2008;
Strömbäck & Dimitrova 2011; Strömbäck & Esser 2009).
Why news media sponsor and cover opinion polls
Based on the above, several although overlapping explanations can be
offered for why contemporary news media find opinion polls so attractive
when covering politics and why they decide to sponsor and cover
their own opinion polls.
First, sponsoring and covering their own opinion polls gives the news
media access to exclusive news. This is attractive partly because polls
function as a newsgathering tool (Ismach 1984) and partly because it
helps in the marketing of the news organization. As noted by Rosenstiel
(2005, p. 699): ‘In an age when an expanding number of news outlets
has put added pressure on all of them to produce audience, indeed, marketing
has become a bigger part of news generally and has intensified as
a motive in political polling in particular.’
Second, sponsoring and covering their own opinion polls gives the
news media full control over the news. The news media commission
the opinion polls, cover the results, and interpret the results and their
antecedents and potential consequences (Frankovic 1998; Petersson
et al. 2006). In essence, by sponsoring and covering their own opinion
polls, the news media are making their own news (Hoffman 1980).
Third, the news media need stories that offer drama and that can
appeal to audiences that otherwise may not be very interested in politics.
In this context, opinion polls are attractive as they offer drama and
change, are assumed to be attention-grabbing (Iyengar, Norpoth & Hahn
2004) and do not require that their audiences have too much knowledge
about politics. Covering the polls becomes the functional equivalent
to covering sports results, a genre with which many are familiar and
comfortable.
Fourth, opinion polls fit perfectly with, while simultaneously driving,
the framing of politics as a strategic game or a horse race rather
than as substance or issues (Cappella & Jamieson 1997; Patterson
14 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
1993). Framing politics as a strategic game has become an increasingly
common feature of election news coverage in a wide range of
countries around the world (Strömbäck & Kaid 2008), driven not least
by media commercialism and the need to attract audience attention
(Strömbäck & van Aelst 2010). In this framing of politics, opinion polls
are indispensable.
Fifth and related, sponsoring and covering their own opinion polls
serves as a perfect substitute for news provided by and pseudo-events
created by political actors. Zaller (2001, p. 155) consequently notes that
‘like a detergent company that wants to get consumers to buy liquid
gel instead of soap bars, journalists must offer something that is the
functional equivalent of the product they replace, that is, something
that provides information about the campaign’. Much of the horse
race and poll coverage meets this requirement of the rule of product
substitution.
Sixth, and again related, most journalists are generalists and not policy
experts. They oftentimes have a hard time following, explaining and
analyzing the substance of different policy problems or proposals. Covering
politics through the lens of the ‘game they play’ (Fallows 1996)
does not require as much knowledge on the part of journalists and is
thus easier. It may also be the case that for many journalists, politics is
a game. It is not just a frame they apply, but also the major part of their
cognitive schemas of politics. If journalists believe that the game is what
ultimately matters, then it is natural to frame politics as a game, and to
use opinion polls to find indicators of how the game is going.
Seventh, when polls are presented by external source organizations,
such as businesses, interest groups, political parties and campaigns,
these polls function as close-to-perfect news subsidies (Gandy 1982). Not
only are the results in the polls new, and thus qualify as news. Oftentimes
the source organizations present them in a journalistic format, and
even if they do not there are ready templates for how to write news stories
focusing on new opinion polls. In both cases, covering opinion polls
commissioned and presented by source organizations offers an efficient
and economic way to gather and present news.
Eighth, covering opinion polls allows journalists a ‘quasi-objective,
proactive role in the news making process’ (Lavrakas & Traugott 2000,
p. 4). As the numbers produced by opinion polls appear as objective,
journalists feel that they can cover opinion polls without running the
risk of being accused of being biased. They can base their criticism of
political parties, candidates and campaigns in the poll results. At the
same time, seldom or never do the numbers speak for themselves, and
Jesper Strömbäck 15
the kind of polls commissioned by the news media seldom or never
include enough questions to investigate what might have caused the
results of a particular opinion poll. Hence, when discussing antecedents
or possible consequences of opinion poll results, journalists have to
interpret or speculate. Still, these interpretations and speculations tend
to appear as anchored in the opinion poll results and as being factual.
Taken together, covering opinion polls thus allows journalists to
be interpretive and proactive while still appearing as objective.
Ninth, by covering opinion polls, the news media are sending ‘the
symbolic message’ (Lavrakas & Traugott 2000, p. 4) that the will and
preferences of the public matters and, explicitly or implicitly, that the
news media are watching out for the interests of the public. Between
politicians and news journalists there is an implicit battle with respect
to whether politicians or news journalists are the true guardians of the
public will and the public opinion. Both sets of actors claim to be working
for the common good, and both sets of actors claim to reflect and
represent public opinion. While elected politicians have the upper hand
according to the formalistic view of representation, by covering opinion
polls and how elected officials do not follow public opinion news
journalists seek to demonstrate that they too function as representatives
for the public in the sense of ‘acting for’ public opinion. This becomes
part of their role as the ‘Fourth Estate’. Hence, it is a means to legitimize
the news media’s role as representatives of the public, and to mark
independence from elected officials.
Tenth, and more generally, opinion polls fit the criteria of newsworthiness
commonly applied when deciding what is news, for example
drama, entertainment value, importance, proximity, negativity, recency,
involvement of elites and power, and unexpectedness (O’Neill & Harcup
2009; see also Campbell 2004; Gans 1980).
There are consequently at least ten reasons for why the media find
opinion polls attractive, and which may help explain why the media –
and political news journalism in particular – sponsor and cover opinion
polls so frequently. In short, ‘News polls function as information source,
as attention-getters, and as a source of journalistic power’ (Frankovic
1998, p. 162). Whether it is a good or a bad thing is, however, another
matter. Partly it depends on normative views related to democracy and
the role of the media and political news journalism in democracies.
Partly it is a matter of proportions. Most observers would agree that
politics and election campaigns are about both policies and substance
on the one hand, and a strategic game on the other, but the question
is how much the media focus on the political substance and the game,
16 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
including the opinion polls, respectively. Partly it also depends on the
quality of the poll coverage and the polls themselves. As already noted,
opinion polling is the best methodology yet invented to investigate public
opinion, but it is far from perfect, and polls can be both used and
misused. The same holds for the media’s coverage of opinion polls.
This is relevant also in the context of whether the media mainly reflect
or shape public opinion through their use of opinion polls. To the extent
that the media cover opinion polls that are well executed and that focus
on issues where people are informed and have thought through their
opinions, the media may reflect rather than shape public opinion. To the
extent that the media cover opinion polls that are not well executed or
that focus on issues where significant parts of the population are not
well informed, have not thought through their opinions or where opinions
are fluid, the media may instead shape rather than reflect public
opinion. In addition, it depends on whether the media provide their
audiences with enough information to assess the results of the polls
that are presented in the media. Thus, it is a matter both of the polls
themselves and about the media’s coverage of them.
Outline of the book
This chapter has reviewed theory and research on the role of public
opinion in democracies, the problem of representation in general and
with respect to representing public opinion in particular, and the quantity
and quality of the media’s coverage of opinion polls; and it has
outlined a framework for understanding the media’s interest in opinion
polls. In subsequent chapters, many of the same themes that have been
touched upon in this chapter will be addressed in much greater depth.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I – ‘Theoretical and Methodological
Approaches’ – includes three chapters. In Chapter 2 – ‘Public
Opinion and Opinion Polling: A Complex Relationship’ – Slavko
Splichal analyzes different conceptualizations of public opinion, how
they have changed over time, enduring controversies in conceptualizations
of public opinion, and how the emergence and predominance of
opinion polls have changed our understanding of public opinion as a
concept and phenomena.
While the freedom to conduct opinion polls and publish the results
can be derived from legal provisions granting people freedom of expression,
the controversies surrounding opinion polling as a methodology,
and fear that the publication of opinion results may affect public opinion
as much as reflect it, have created incentives for countries to regulate
the execution of opinion polls and the publishing of their results.
Jesper Strömbäck 17
Different countries have, however, taken different approaches to the regulation
of opinion polling. In Chapter 3 – ‘Regulations of Opinion Polls:
A Comparative Perspective’ – Thomas Petersen reviews and analyzes discourses
surrounding the regulation of opinion as well as the regulations
of opinion polls in a comparative, cross-national perspective.
As mentioned in this introductory chapter, opinion polling is a
methodology for surveying people’s opinions, and as such it has both
strengths and weaknesses. For example, there are different modes
through which people’s responses can be collected, and numerous
controversies related to the survey methodology. However, opinion
polling is also evolving, partly to address the methodological problems
and challenges involved. Against this background, Chapter 4 –
‘Methodological Trends and Controversies in the Media’s Use of Opinion
Polls’ – by Michael Traugott reviews and analyzes opinion polling as
a methodology and methodological trends in opinion polling.
Part II of the book focuses on ‘The Media’s Publication of Opinion
Polls’ from an international perspective. Although there may be many
similarities across countries, the media’s publication of opinion polls is
always situated in the contexts in which the media operate, and this
context is in turn shaped by the political as well as the media systems
in respective countries as well as by contextual factors. In essence, the
media and political systems as well as the contexts matter, which makes
it important to investigate the media’s publication of opinion polls
in different countries. Hence, for this book we selected six countries,
guided by the ambition to include a diverse set of democratic countries
covering all five continents. Consequently, Part II of this book includes
six chapters, each focused on one particular country, and the purpose
of these is to review and analyze research within each country with
respect to the media’s publications of opinion polls. The chapters are
Chapter 5 – ‘Opinion Polls and the Media in Germany: A Productive but
Critical Relationship’ – by Christina Holtz-Bacha, Chapter 6 – ‘Opinion
Polls and the Media in the United States’ – by Kathleen Frankovic,
Chapter 7 – ‘Opinion Polls and the Media in Brazil’ – by Flávia Biroli,
Luis Felipe Miguel and Fernanda Ferreira Mota, Chapter 8 – ‘Opinion
Polls and the Media in Australia’ – by Stephen Mills and Rodney Tiffen,
Chapter 9 – ‘Opinion Polls and the Media in South Africa’ – by Robert
Mattes and Chapter 10 – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Opinion in
Taiwan – by Lars Willnat, Ven-hwei Lo and Annette Aw. Taken together,
the chapters in Part II provide an extensive review of how the media use
and cover opinion polls worldwide.
Part III of the book is devoted to the ‘Effects and Consequences of
Published Opinion Polls’ and includes three chapters. The first of these,
18 The Media and Their Use of Opinion Polls
Chapter 11 – ‘Attitudinal and Behavioral Consequences of Published
Opinion Polls’ – is written by Patricia Moy and Eike Mark Rinke. It consequently
deals with the extent to which the media’s use of opinion
polls shapes, rather than reflects, public opinion. Briefly, the chapter
shows that research suggests that people’s attitudes, opinions and behaviors
are affected by polls published by the media. For example, research
has shown that the publication of opinion polls by the media can produce
bandwagon as well as underdog effects. These are discussed in
Chapter 11, along with theories such as spiral of silence and the theory
of impersonal influence that deals with the effects of published opinion
polls on the public.
Published opinion polls do not just have effects on the public: they
may also have effects on and consequences for political parties and their
leaders, who may simultaneously attempt to strategically use opinion
polls in their efforts to manage the news. How published opinion polls
may affect political parties and their leaders, and how political parties
and leaders use opinion polls in news management processes, is the
focus of Chapter 12 – ‘Published Opinion Polls, Strategic Party Behavior,
and News Management’ – by Jesper Strömbäck.
Part III of the book concludes with Chapter 13 – ‘Opinion Polls, Media
and the Political System’ – by Christina Holtz-Bacha. In this chapter the
author discusses the issue of whether opinion polls in general – and as
used by the media and political actors in particular – reflect or shape
public opinion; the role of opinion polls in contemporary democracies;
how they are used by and influence both the media and political actors;
and the implications for the political system and democracy.
Taken together, it is hoped that the chapters in this volume will shed
new light and serve as a springboard for further research on the relationships
between the media, opinion polls, public opinion, politics and
democracy. Do opinion polls, as covered by the media, mainly serve as
Vox Populi – the voice of the people – or as Vox Media – the voice of the
media? And what are the democratic consequences?
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