Matters of Opinion: Part II — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:29[Music]
2. 0:39In the first part of this lecture, we discussed  several different ways in which the concept of
3. 0:43public opinion has been understood over the course  of US History. We also saw that Mark Carl Rom's
4. 0:49definition of the term is the most widely accepted  one today. "Public opinion," he writes, "is the
5. 0:56aggregation of individual views that represent  the feelings that people hold on an issue at a
6. 1:01given point in time." Those views are tabulated  by posters in order to reveal the thoughts of a
7. 1:08numerical majority. Now, it is the determination  of a numerical majority that purportedly makes
8. 1:15public opinion surveys newsworthy. After all,  where would we be, politically or socially,
9. 1:22were it not for the viability of majority  rule? Well, according to Thomas Jefferson,
10. 1:28we'd be in a very bad place, indeed. "Where the  law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged,"
11. 1:34Jefferson warned a gathering of citizens in  Annapolis, Maryland, "there government ends,
12. 1:40the law of the strongest takes its place, and life  and property are his who can take them." Where the
13. 1:47law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged,  we're likely to find ourselves, Jefferson says,
14. 1:53in an anarchic dystopia. And by, acknowledgement,  Jefferson presumably has in mind that word's legal
15. 2:01or political meaning. That is, acknowledgement  here refers to a formal recognition of "rights,
16. 2:08authority, and status." But, in practical terms, what  does it mean to recognize the authority of a
17. 2:15majority when it comes to elections it means the  candidate for whom a majority voted takes office
18. 2:21or remains in office. In the case of referendums, it  means the majority decides whether a proposition
19. 2:27is accepted or rejected, unless the threshold for  passing a ballot measure for some reason requires
20. 2:33a supermajority rather than a simple majority. Of  course, elections are not held all that often, which
21. 2:40is why there are seemingly few opportunities for  citizens to have any significant input on matters
22. 2:47of public policy. In an effort to fill that void,  George Gallup and Elmo Roper introduced modern
23. 2:54polling. The public opinion survey, Gallup  triumphantly declared, "allows the will of
24. 3:01the majority of citizens to be ascertained at all  times." What's more, Gallup and Roper insisted modern
25. 3:08polling was exacting and objective. "If our work  is not scientific," Gallup boasted, then no social
26. 3:16scientists and hardly any natural scientists  "have a right to use that word." In short, polling
27. 3:23empowers the citizenry, by giving to each person  who has surveyed a voice. As political scientist
28. 3:31Sydney Verba of Harvard University put it in the  mid 1990s: "surveys produce just what democracy is
29. 3:37supposed to produce: equal representation of  all citizens. The sample survey is rigorously
30. 3:44egalitarian," Verba continues. "It is designed  so that each citizen has an equal chance to
31. 3:50participate and an equal voice when participating."  Quiz question number one: according to the political
32. 3:57scientist Sydney Verba, what makes public opinion  surveys quintessentially democratic? When framed
33. 4:05in such terms, it's easy to see why anyone who  dares to be critical of public opinion surveys
34. 4:12would come across as an enemy of the people. In  fact, in a recent defense of polling, G Elliot Morris
35. 4:19claims that "in many cases the denigration of  polls is made by elites, elective officials, and
36. 4:27ideological activists who have a stake in the  public's voice not being heard." But those many
37. 4:35cases Morris refers to mostly lie in the past. For  instance, a half century ago, the late Leo Bogart, a
38. 4:42renowned sociologist at Columbia University, inveighed against public opinion surveys, accusing pollsters of
39. 4:49having invented a tool that is used to "measure  shadows cast, as in Plato's myth, upon the wall
40. 4:56of a cave." In other words, Bogart thinks surveys  do little more than amplify the views of the
41. 5:02benighted masses. However, when reviewing the current  social science literature, it becomes evident that
42. 5:09Morris mischaracterizes the nature of much of the  opposition to polling. That's why we will focus now
43. 5:16on those who critique public opinion surveys in  the name of democracy. That is, there are today a
44. 5:23growing number of critics who argue that the  pervasiveness of modern polling undermines
45. 5:30rather than promotes democracy. How so? Well,  for one thing, when attempting to defend their
46. 5:37work, pollsters invariably and erroneously treat an  ideal of democracy as though it were an existing
47. 5:45political reality. Exhibit a in this context would  be the book by Morris that I referred to moments
48. 5:51ago. Public opinion surveys hand a "megaphone to  the voice of the people," he writes, "causing it
49. 5:58to reverberate through the halls of government."  For that metaphor to work, however, our current
50. 6:06political environment would have to be one in  which corporate lobbyists exert but a negligible
51. 6:11influence upon members of Congress who, as a  matter of course, remain highly responsive to their
52. 6:17engaged and informed constituents. But at best  that scenario approximates a rare exception to
53. 6:26the rule. At worst? It covers over and perpetuates  systemic corruption and mass disaffection. Another
54. 6:37idealistic defense of polling was put forward by  George Gallip himself, who famously likened polling
55. 6:43to legendary New England Town Hall meetings. In  making this analogy, though, Gallup concedes that by
56. 6:50the 1940s, the traditional town hall meeting had  lost much of its original luster. Fortunately, as
57. 6:58Gallup saw it, the public public opinion survey  with the support of the mass media had become
58. 7:03the worthy successor to the town hall meeting. When  compared to the latter, Gallup claimed polling was
59. 7:10far more expansive and inclusive. "The newspapers  and the radio conduct the debate on national
60. 7:16issues," Gallup proudly explained, "just as folks did  in person in the old town hall meeting." And then, by
61. 7:23responding to survey questions, "the people, having  heard the debate on both sides of every issue, can
62. 7:29express their will." In that sense, Gallup argues  we can imagine that "the nation is literally in
63. 7:35one great room." However, Bruce Miroff of Suny Albany  argues that the analogy Gallup draws between town
64. 7:44hall meetings and public opinion surveys falters  on account of three interrelated factors. First,
65. 7:51unlike participants in town hall meetings, the  people surveyed cannot engage in discussions with
66. 7:55one another before answering the questions that  are put to them. Second, they have no influence
67. 8:02over which questions are posed to them. And third,  they cannot tell pollsters that they are asking the
68. 8:08wrong questions or caution them that the situation  is far more complex than the survey allows for. Quiz
69. 8:15question number two: according to Bruce Miroff, what  are two criticisms of the analogy Gallup draws
70. 8:22between town hall meetings and public opinion  surveys? We see then that Gallup's analogy actually  draws
71. 8:29attention to the shortcomings of public opinion  surveys. Viewed in this critical light, polls even
72. 8:36fail to bring about what Gallup identifies as  their most basic and vital function: namely, to
73. 8:42give the people a public platform so that their  voices may be heard. Instead, through a kind of
74. 8:50ventriloquism, pollsters construct something that  they then call public opinion. That is, despite
75. 8:58adopting increasingly sophisticated  methodologies, opinion polls do not merely record
76. 9:04or reflect an already existing public opinion.  iI short, and this is today's main takeaway,
77. 9:12they routinely manufacture it. Now, in doing so, the  questions pollsters pose may at times seem trivial.
78. 9:20Alternatively, the questions may be framed in a way  that furthers a political agenda, especially if, as
79. 9:27is the case for the issue shown here, it is one  that receives overwhelming bipartisan support.
80. 9:33Either way, "one of the most pernicious effects of  opinion surveys, writes sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in
81. 9:40an often cited and still highly influential 1972  essay, "is to put people in a position where they
82. 9:46must answer a question they have never thought  about. The simple fact of asking everyone the same
83. 9:52question," Bourdieu continues, "falsely implies that  there is a consensus about the problem, that is, an
84. 9:58agreement about which questions are worth asking."  Prominent elective officials, legacy media figures,
85. 10:06CEOs, and interest group leaders may indeed think  a particular question is worth asking in a certain
86. 10:13way. If nothing else, this indicates there is a  consensus among elites that an issue is important.
87. 10:19But the wider public may have had nothing to do  with the forming of that consensus. The opinion
88. 10:26poll, however, assumes actual and potential respondents share the elites' belief that certain
89. 10:32questions are worth asking while others are safely  ignored. Moreover, when surveys are examined closely,
90. 10:39we can see how pollsters may phrase their questions  in ways that greatly narrow the parameters of
91. 10:45public debate. That's why when looking at polls, we  should always try to determine if the questions
92. 10:51are free of framing, meaning they should not be  worded in ways that lead respondents to choose
93. 10:58a particular answer. Consider in that regard  an October 2024 survey from Gallup, which has
94. 11:05been conducted annually for a little more than two  decades. Respondents to that survey were asked the
95. 11:12following (and I'll try my best here to adopt the  impartial tone of the pollster): in your view, do the
96. 11:20Republican and Democratic parties do an adequate  job of representing the American people, or do they
97. 11:24do such a poor job that a third major party is  needed? Quiz question three has two parts. First,
98. 11:32how would you answer that poll question? Second: do  you think it is free of framing? Briefly discuss.
99. 11:4158% of those who took the Gallup survey answered  that question in the affirmative. But we should
100. 11:46linger a moment over what they were actually  asked. Now, if we break the question down into its
101. 11:52component parts, we see that it actually conjoins  two separate questions. The first reads: in your
102. 11:59view, do to the Republican and Democratic parties  do an adequate job of representing the American
103. 12:05people? Right off the bat, we run into serious  difficulties, for what is a respondent supposed to
104. 12:11say if they think the Republicans do an adequate  job but the Democrats do not? And what is another
105. 12:18respondent supposed to say if they think to  themselves: the Democrats do an OK job, I guess,
106. 12:25but, damn it all, that's just not good enough! Such  respondents are in effect forced to misrepresent
107. 12:32their position, no matter what answer they give.  And that's even the case if out of frustration
108. 12:39they opt for, I don't know, since that third possible  response acts here as a catch-all, meant to sweep up
109. 12:46every opinion that falls outside of Gallup's  constricting either or formulation. And things
110. 12:53get still worse. Say only 10 people were surveyed.  While we're at it, let's also Imagine all of them
111. 13:00are so put off by both parties that each one  responded to the question still on the screen
112. 13:06with a no. Well, in that case, we'd still largely  be in the dark about what sort of opinions were
113. 13:13thereby expressed. And why? Because each of those  10 people may well have different understandings
114. 13:19of what the word, adequate, means, just like any 10  of you may have 10 different ways of determining
115. 13:27what an adequate amount of preparation for for an  exam is, or what an adequate amount of feedback from
116. 13:32me on one of your quizzes should be. It depends  upon the set of expectations each person has, why
117. 13:40they have such expectations, and what standards  they use when coming up with them. All of these
118. 13:46factors are both inherently subjective and rooted  in diverse social experiences, which is why there's
119. 13:52no basis for assuming we have anything remotely  like a consensus as to what adequate means when
120. 13:58it comes to analyzing the Gallup survey results.  On top of all that, we have to contend with the
121. 14:06second part of the unwieldy question, which could  plant the idea of the need for a major third party
122. 14:12in the mind of the person who is surveyed.  A beleaguered respondent fed up with both
123. 14:18parties might think to themselves while taking  the survey: I'd actually been thinking lately
124. 14:23about the need to get big money out of election  campaigns, but now that you mention it, sure, maybe
125. 14:29what we really need today is the creation of a  major third party. We should note here that the
126. 14:35word, major, signals to the respondent that Gallup  is not referring to any existing third parties,
127. 14:42like, say, the Libertarians or the Greens, who in  truth hardly deserve even to be called minor
128. 14:48parties, as these pitiable vote totals from the  2024 election indicate. But the survey gives us no
129. 14:56way of knowing whether a respondent favoring the creation of a brand new third party will then
130. 15:02volunteer to help like-minded individuals build  one from scratch or merely treat that belief as
131. 15:08a pure fantasy, as an idle wish. Note lastly that  in the Gallup question there's no way for someone
132. 15:16to say that the two-party system is doing an  adequate job, but we still need a major third
133. 15:23party. Anyone holding that belief would simply  not have a means of expressing it. They would in
134. 15:30effect be silenced, and their relatively nuanced  point of view would be excluded from the survey
135. 15:36results. The criticisms of public opinion surveys  that I've shared with you today have led social
136. 15:42theorists like Jean Baudrillard to ask whether polls that  often treat individuals more like test subjects
137. 15:48than engaged citizens should be done away with  once and for all. However, while surveys routinely
138. 15:54manufacture rather than merely record public  opinion, that is not say that public opinion is
139. 16:01completely illusory. Shifting public attitudes, at  any rate, are quite real, and so are the struggles
140. 16:08for power through which certain beliefs become  hegemonic. When examined critically, the data
141. 16:15obtained from a poll can be treated as something  more than a simple rejection or affirmation of
142. 16:20an existing policy or specific proposal. Instead,  such data can be counted as one source among many
143. 16:28that then helps us understand the dynamic  socioeconomic and cultural conditions underlying
144. 16:34the shaping of opinions, the reallocating of scarce  resources, the mobilizing of pressure groups, and
145. 16:42the staking out of new political positions.  We'll close with quiz question four, which
146. 16:48like question three, has two parts. Quiz question  four: first, how would you respond to the recent
147. 16:56Pew Research Center question that appears on the  screen? It reads: "compared with 20 years ago, do you
148. 17:03think being a teenager today is harder, easier, or  about the same? Second, do you think that question
149. 17:11is flawed in any respect? Briefly discuss, referring  to any of today's criticisms of polling as needed.