Opinion Polls
- LAST REVIEWED: 17 May 2019
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0140
- LAST REVIEWED: 17 May 2019
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0140
Introduction
Polls and surveys are the main methodology by which public opinion is measured. Unbiased polls can be conducted by commercial firms, researchers at colleges and universities, think tanks, and, increasingly, by news organizations. But organized interest or partisan groups also collect and report biased data with an eye toward getting such data into the news stream in order to influence public opinion. To understand public opinion and assess its sources, it is essential to understand the psychological underpinnings of it as well as the details of the methods by which it was collected. The polling literature places a particular emphasis on election polls because of the special circumstance in which estimates of election outcomes derived from these surveys can be validated against the actual outcome of the elections. All of these topics are covered in the Oxford Bibliographies Online articles Communication Campaigns, Knowledge Gap, Media Effects, News Framing, Political Advertising, Priming, and Public Opinion, with a particular emphasis here on the methodology and interpretation of the results. Other bibliographies are cited as appropriate.
Journals
Because of the rapidly changing technology that survey researchers employ, their methods undergo constant change, revision, and improvement. The only way to keep up with these changes is through the journals that the primary professional associations publish. This section contains journals that are published by professional associations that cover primarily issues of public opinion or survey and polling methodology. The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) sponsors three of these journals: Public Opinion Quarterly (cited under Public Opinion Research Primary Focus), Survey Practice (cited under Survey Methods Primary Focus), and their newest, the Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology (cited under Survey Methods Primary Focus). The World Association for Public Opinion Research sponsors the International Journal of Public Opinion Research (cited under Public Opinion Research Primary Focus). These four journals contain articles about survey methodology as well as the uses and consequences of polls. The following listing is divided into two parts—journals that present research findings that relate primarily to public opinion and those that present research on survey methods.
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Article
- Activist Media
- Adherence and Communication
- Adolescence and the Media
- Advertisements, Televised Political
- Advertising
- Advertising, Children and
- Advertising, International
- Agenda Setting
- Annenberg, Walter H.
- Applied Communication Research Methods
- Argumentation
- Attitude-Behavior Consistency
- Audience Fragmentation
- Audience Studies
- Bakhtin, Mikhail
- Bandwagon Effect
- Baudrillard, Jean
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Brand Equity
- British and Irish Magazine, History of the
- Broadcasting, Public Service
- Castells, Manuel
- Celebrity and Public Persona
- Censorship
- Civic Duty
- Civil Rights Movement and the Media, The
- CNN
- Codes and Cultural Discourse Analysis
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Collective Memory, Communication and
- Comedic News
- Communication Apprehension
- Communication Campaigns
- Communication, Definitions and Concepts of
- Communication History
- Communication Law
- Communication Networks
- Communication, Philosophy of
- Community Attachment
- Community Structure Approach
- Computer-Mediated Communication
- Content Analysis
- Corporate Social Responsibility and Communication
- Crisis Communication
- Critical and Cultural Studies
- Cross-tools and Cross-media Effects
- Cultivation
- Cultural and Creative Industries
- Cultural Imperialism Theories
- Cultural Persuadables
- Cyberpolitics
- 3D Media
- Death, Dying, and Communication
- Debates, Televised
- Deliberation
- Developmental Communication
- Diffusion of Innovations
- Digital Divide
- Digital Literacy
- Diplomacy, Public
- Distributed Work, Comunication and
- Documentary and Communication
- E-democracy/E-participation
- E-Government
- Elaboration Likelihood Model
- Embedded Coverage
- Entertainment
- Entertainment-Education
- Environmental Communication
- Ethnography of Communication
- Experiments
- Family Communication
- Federal Communications Commission
- Feminist and Queer Game Studies
- Feminist Theory
- Focus Groups
- Freedom of the Press
- Gatekeeping
- Gender and the Media
- Global Englishes
- Goffman, Erving
- Habermas, Jürgen
- Habituation and Communication
- Health Communication
- Hegemony
- Hermeneutic Communication Studies
- Heuristics
- Hook-Up and Dating Apps
- Hostile Media Effect
- Identification with Media Characters
- Image Repair Theory
- Implicit Measurement
- Impression Management
- Indexing
- Infographics
- Information and Communication Technology for Development
- Information Management
- Information Overload
- Information Processing
- Infotainment
- Innis, Harold
- Instructional Communication
- Integrated Marketing Communications
- Interactivity
- Intercultural Capital
- Intercultural Communication
- Intercultural Conflict Mediation
- Intergenerational Communication
- Intergroup Communication
- International Communications
- Interpersonal Communication
- Interpretation/Reception
- Journalism
- Journalism, Alternative
- Journalism and Trauma
- Journalism, Citizen
- Journalism, Citizen, History of
- Journalism Ethics
- Journalism, Interpretive
- Journalism, Peace
- Journalism, Tabloid
- Knowledge Gap
- Mass Communication
- McLuhan, Marshall
- Media Activism
- Media Aesthetics
- Media Bias
- Media Convergence
- Media Credibility
- Media Dependency
- Media Ecology
- Media Economics
- Media Economics, Theories of
- Media, Educational
- Media Effects
- Media Ethics
- Media Events
- Media Exposure Measurement
- Media, Gays and Lesbians in the
- Media Literacy
- Media Logic
- Media Management
- Media Policy and Governance
- Media Regulation
- Media, Social
- Media Sociology
- Media Systems Theory
- Merton, Robert K.
- Message Characteristics and Persuasion
- Mobile Communication Studies
- Muckraking
- Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Approaches to
- Murdoch, Rupert
- Narrative
- Narrative Engagement
- Narrative Persuasion
- News Framing
- NGOs, Communication and
- Online Campaigning
- Organizational Change and Organizational Change Communicat...
- Organizational Communication
- Organizational Communication, Aging and
- Parasocial Theory in Communication
- Participation, Civic/Political
- Perceived Realism
- Persuasion and Social Influence
- Persuasion, Resisting
- Photojournalism
- Political Advertising
- Political Communication, Normative Analysis of
- Political Economy
- Political Knowledge
- Political Marketing
- Political Scandals
- Political Socialization
- Polls, Opinion
- Priming
- Product Placement
- Propaganda
- Proxemics
- Public Opinion
- Public Relations
- Public Sphere
- Queer Intercultural Communication
- Queer Migration and Digital Media
- Radio Studies
- Reality Television
- Reasoned Action Frameworks
- Religion and the Media
- Reporting, Investigative
- Rhetoric and Communication
- Rhetoric, Religious
- Risk Communication
- Schramm, Wilbur
- Science Communication
- Scripps, E. W.
- Selective Exposure
- Semiotics
- Sense-Making/Sensemaking
- Sesame Street
- Sex in the Media
- Small-Group Communication
- Social Capital
- Social Change
- Social Cognition
- Social Construction
- Social Identity Theory and Communication
- Social Interaction
- Social Movements
- Social Network Analysis
- Social Protest
- Sports Communication
- Stereotypes
- Strategic Communication
- Surveillance and Communication
- Symbolic Interactionism in Communication
- Tabloidization
- Telecommunications History/Policy
- Television
- Television, Cable
- Textual Analysis and Communication
- Third Culture Kids
- Third-Person Effect
- Time Warner
- Transgender Media Studies
- Transmedia Storytelling
- Two-Step Flow
- Uses and Gratifications
- Video
- Video Deficit
- Video Games and Communication
- Violence in the Media
- Virtual Reality and Communication
- Visual Communication
- Web 2.0
- Web Archiving
- Webcare
- Whistleblowing
- WikiLeaks
- Youth and Media