Polls give an appearance of “data-driven journalism”, but they are not.
They make it effortless to form an opinion with no information assembly required. They are a sort of rolling referendum and their science is not in accuracy but in giving the appearance of it.
Who has unleashed these hordes of polls and why! How are political opinion polls run, who funds them and what is happening behind the curtain?
Polls are propaganda 99.7% of the time
We are wild things studied in zoos by behavioral scientists and marketers. If you read, watch television or go to the movies you are contaminated with propaganda. If you avoid those things, but your friends don’t, then they will expose you, it is airborne.
Case study, an American antagonist: Brookings Institution
Think tanks think about getting paid. They are granted authority in Media and in dinner conversations.
Brookings pounded the intellectual table in favor of the $8 billion San Francisco Shipyard project yet failed to disclose receiving some $400,000 from its developer, the Lennar Corp. Is this a conflict? Maybeeeee. Maybeeeeeee not! But, it should be repeatedly disclosed and emphasized each time the Brookings work was being cited. But, it wasn’t.
Lies, damned lies and polls
Push Polls participants are pushed towards a predetermined result. They use loaded questions constructed on a fallacious conflation and an assertion designed to sway the respondent into answering in a particular manner.
Social norming is manipulating a false sense of consensus by suggesting that many others have already “joined” the “cause” and are happier or better off for doing so. Words like “everyone” “we” “our” “most people” or “many” are used to imply which is the ‘good group’ and to suggest that consensus and coerce acceptance.
Bandwagon and inevitable-victory persuades the “vote consumer” to join in and take the course of action that “everyone else is taking.” Inevitable victory invites those not already on the bandwagon to join those already convinced they are on the road to certain victory.
Repetition is an idea, especially a simple slogan, that is repeated enough times, may begin to be taken as the truth. This approach works best when media sources are limited and controlled by the propagator.
Gaslighting is an avalanche of lies to render a populace powerless to resist.
Keep it fuzzy technique (my favorite!) is a device used by the media and in political rhetoric to persuade us to approve and accept something without examining any evidence. Sloganized political discourses are coerced into the targets, leading to a loss of conceptual clarity, terms are used as if interchangeable, words and phrases jumbled by skipping over which meaning is intended at a particular time.
What if we are the Russians and they are us?
In 1951 the CIA decided to see how Voice of America radio broadcasts into Eastern Europe compared with Soviet efforts and it assessed the similarities and differences between U.S. and Soviet propaganda as essentially similar to Soviet propaganda, going so far as saying that most Americans would be surprised by the similarities between the two. The completed analytical is a list of 33 main similarities between Soviet and American propaganda, including the “impression of objectivity,” “avoiding obvious lying on tangible facts,” blurring distinctions within enemy camp,” and “not dignifying opponent’s position by quoting it.”
This is an excellent academic ‘splainer
The end?