POLITSC 1100 Lecture Notes - Narrowcasting, News Corporation, Time Warner
11 Apr 2014
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Measuring public opinion: 1800s: straw polls created by newspapers approach people on the street first attempt to measure popular sentiment on a large scale unscientific polls ex: take a survey on this floor of jr building, bias because only people in building and many from poli sci class, by 1930s modern relatively accurate polling techniques were developed random sampling (scientific polls) equally likely to draw a person"s name no bias tell us something about what the population is thinking estimates, beta hats, searching for real beta. Margin/sampling error how good your sample is true estimate range; cannot tell you exact confidence intervals: american national election studies, daily show poll bearers. Tracking polls: horse race coverage, start at anytime, popularity of candidates, republican blame for housing market going down, recession, people afraid to elect another republican since republican in office, context reshapes the race and overall outcome.
