A critique of internet polls as symbolic representation and pseudo-events

Communication Studies

Volumn 57, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 299-315

  Kent, Michael L ^a   Harrison, Tyler R ^b   Taylor, Maureen ^a  

^a WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b PURDUE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Internet; Opinion Polling; Poll; Polling; Pseudo Events; Symbolic; Symbolic Representation; World Wide Web

Indexed keywords

EID: 39149110679     PISSN: 10510974     EISSN: 17451035     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10510970600845941     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Asher, H., (1998). Polling and the public: What every citizen should know. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
2. Bagdikian, B. H., (2000). The media monopoly. Boston: Beacon Press.
3. Baran, S. J., (2001). Introduction to mass communication: Media literacy and culture: 2001 update. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.
4. Bennett, S. E., (1998, September). Young Americans' indifference to media coverage of public affairs. The American Political Science Association, Online, .
5. Boorstin, D. J., (1962). The image or what happened to the American dream. New York: Atheneum.
6. Boorstin, D. J., (1972). The image: A guide to pseudo-events in America. New York: Atheneum.
7. Bowler, S., & Karp, J. A., (2003). They've only themselves to blame: Politicians, scandals and trust in government in the United States and Britain. Paper presented to the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.
8. Burke, K., (1969). A rhetoric of motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
9. Cantril, A., (1991). The opinion connection: Polling, politics, and the press. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
10. Cantril, H., (1944). Gauging public opinion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
11. Chan-Olmsted, S. M., & Park, J. S., (2000). From on-air to online world: Examining the content and structures of broadcast tv stations' Web sites. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 72 (2), 321–329. [CSA]
12. Dewey, J., (1927). The public and its problems. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
13. Duerst-Lahti, G., & Verstegen, D., (1995). Making something of absence: The “year of the woman” and women's representation. In G., Duerst-Lahti & R. M., Kelly (Eds.), Gender power, leadership and governance (pp. 213–238). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
14. Edelman, M., (1964). The symbolic uses of politics. London: University of Illinois Press.
15. Edelman, M., (2001). Presidential address: Defining our profession and ourselves. Public Opinion Quarterly, 65, 436–444. [CSA]
16. Ellison, H., (1991). The essential Ellison: A 35-year retrospective. Beverly Hills, CA: Morpheus International.
17. Ellison, H., (1996). Edgeworks 1: An edge in my voice. Clarkston, GA: White Wolf Publishing.
18. Entman, R. M., (1989, May). How the media effect what people think: An information processing approach. Journal of Politics, 51, 347–370. [CSA][CROSSREF]
19. Fallows, D., (2004). The Internet and daily life: Many Americans use the Internet in everyday activities, but traditional offline habits still dominate. Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project (http://www.pewinternet.org/).
20. Farnsworth, S. J., & Lichter, S. R., (2003). The nightly news nightmare: Network television's coverage of presidential election, 1988–2000. Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield.
21. Fuller, J., (2002). Public inauthenticity: A crisis of falling expectations. Retrieved August 18, 2002 from http://www.newsombudsmen.org/fuller.html.
22. Goldstein, N., (ed.) (1998). Associated press stylebook: And briefing on media law. New York: Associated Press.
23. Grann, D., (1999, March 8). Washington scene: Muckmakers. The New Republic, 16–18. [CSA]
24. Harrison, T. R., (1995). Are public opinion polls used illegitimately: 47% say yes. In S., Jackson (Ed.), Argumentation and values: Proceedings of the ninth SCA/AFA conference on argumentation (pp. 383–388). Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
25. He, Z., & Zhu, J., (2002). The ecology of online newspapers: The case of China. Media, Culture & Society, 24, 121–137. [CSA]
26. Head, S. W., Spann, T., & McGregor, M. A., (2001). Broadcasting in America: A survey of electronic media, (9th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
27. Herbst, S., (1990). Assessing public opinion in the 1930s–1940s: Retrospective views of journalists. Journalism Quarterly, 67, 943–949. [CSA]
28. Herbst, S., (1993). Numbered voices. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
29. Hiebert, R. E., (1999). Impact of mass media: Current issues. New York: Longman.
30. Hinckley, B., (1994). Less than meets the eye: Foreign policy masking and the myth of the assertive Congress. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
31. Hogan, J. M., (1997). George Gallup and the rhetoric of scientific democracy. Communication Monographs, 64, 161–179. [CSA]
32. InternetWorldStats. (2004). (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm).
33. Kent, M. L., (2001). Managerial rhetoric as the metaphor of the World Wide Web. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 18 (3), 359–375. [CSA][CROSSREF]
34. Kent, M. L., & Taylor, M., (1998). Building dialogic relationships through the World Wide Web. Public Relations Review, 24 (3), 321–334. [CSA][CROSSREF]
35. Kornhauser, W., (1959). The politics of mass society. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
36. Korzi, M. J., (2000). Lapsed memory? The roots of American public opinion research. Polity, 33 (1), 49–75. [CSA][CROSSREF]
37. Lenhart, A., Horrigan, J., Rainie, L., Allen, K., Boyce, A., Madden, M., & O'Grady, E., (2003). The ever-shifting Internet population: A new look at Internet access and the digital divide. Washington, DC: The Pew Internet & American Life Project (http://www.pewinternet.org/).
38. Lin, C. A., & Jeffres, L. W., (2001). Comparing distinctions and similarities across websites of newspapers, radio stations, and television stations. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 78 (3), 555–573. [CSA]
39. Lipari, L., (1999). Polling as ritual. Journal of Communication, 49 (1), 83–102. [CSA]
40. Lippmann, W., (1922). Public opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
41. Lowell, A. L., (1913). Public opinion and popular government. New York: Longmans Green.
42. Marton, K., & Stephens, L. F., (2001). The New York Times' conformity to AAPOR standards of disclosure for the reporting of public opinion polls. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 78(3), 484–502. [CSA]
43. McMillan, S. J., (2000). The microscope and the moving target: The challenge of applying content analysis to the World Wide Web. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 77 (1), 80–98. [CSA]
44. Middleberg, D., & Ross, S. S., (2000). Survey of media in the wired world. New York: Middleberg Euro RSGC. Available upon request to academicians on the Middleberg and Associates Web site .
45. Middleberg, D., & Ross, S. S., (2002). The Middleberg/Ross media survey: Change and its impact on communication. New York: Middleberg Euro RSGC. Available upon request to academicians on the Middleberg and Associates Web site .
46. Nie, N. H., Verba, S., & Pertocik, J. R., (1993). The decline of partisanship. In R. G., Niemi & H. F., Weisberg (Eds.), Classics in voting behavior (pp. 234–246). Washington, DC: CQ Press.
47. Niemi, R. G., & Weisberg, H. F., (Eds.) (1993). Classics in voting behavior. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
48. Papper, R. A., (1995). Broadcast news writing stylebook. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
49. Rubenstein, S., (1995). Surveying public opinion. New York: Wadsworth.
50. Schultz, T., (2000). Mass media and the concept of interactivity: An exploratory study of online forums and reader email. Media, Culture & Society, 22, 205–221. [CSA]
51. Singer, J. B., (2001). The metro wide Web: Changes in newspapers gatekeeping role online. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 78 (1), 65–80. [CSA]
52. Spooner, T., (2001, December). Asian-Americans and the Internet: The young and the connected. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project (http://www.pewinternet.org/).
53. Sproule, J. M., (1988). The new managerial rhetoric and the old criticism. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 74, 468–486. [CSA]
54. Steele, C. A., & Barnhurst, K. G., (1996), The journalism of opinion: Network coverage in U.S. presidential campaigns, 1968–1988. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 13 (3), 187–209. [CSA]
55. Stempel, G. H., III, Hargrove, T., & Bernt, J. P., (2000). Relation of growth of use of the Internet to changes in media use from 1995 to 1999. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 77 (1), 71–79. [CSA]
56. Tucker, A., (2003, September). The role of mistrust in modernized administrations. Paper presented to the Conference of the European Group of Public Administration, Oeiras, Portugal.
57. Ulbig, S. G., (2001, September). Political trust and the local government context. Paper presented to the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, CA.
58. Wu, H. D., & Bechtel, A., (2002). Web site use and news topic and type. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 79 (1), 73–86. [CSA]