Mass Media | Opinion Polls Are Bad For Politics

I Polling during presidential election campaigns has become a daily affair with unfortunate consequences for voters and politicians alike. Not only has the number of voter polls broadcast by network television news more than tripled since 1968, our research shows that polling reports have grown at the expense of issue coverage.

In 1968, for each minute of poll coverage in their news reports, the TV networks broadcast four minutes of campaign issue coverage. By 1992 this ratio had fallen to only 90 seconds of issue coverage for each minute of poll coverage.

NEWS...

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