Opinion Polling

Opinion polls are surveys of public opinions. Opinion polls are conducted by soliciting opinions from a sample and then extrapolating those results to make predictions about the opinions of an entire population. Since the second half of the 20th century, probability sampling has been employed so that everyone in the population has an equal (or known) likelihood of being included in the selected sample. Each polling agency sets up its own methodology and updates this on a regular basis to ensure its efficacy. This entry introduces opinion polling in the context of communication research and discusses some of its limitations.

Opinion Polling and Random Sampling

Obtaining a true random probability sample continues to be a challenge for researchers. Opinion polls have owed ...

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