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0 | Publ c Op n on: Are Polls Democrat c?
see also Alternative Media in the United States; Children and Effects; Global
Community Media; Media and Citizenship; Media Reform; Media Watch
Groups; National Public Radio; Political Documentary; Public Access Televi-
sion; Public Opinion; Public Sphere; Regulating the Airwaves.
Further reading: Consoli, John. “PBS Hones Its Pitch With New Sponsorships.” Media-
Week 16, no. 34 (September 25, 2006). http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/article_
display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003155605; Current: The Newspaper about Public TV
and Radio in the U.S. http://www.current.org/; de Moraes, Lisa. “PBS’s ‘Buster’ Gets An
Education.” Washington Post, January 27, 2005, C01; Hoynes, William. Public Televi-
sion for Sale: Media, the Market and the Public Sphere. Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1994; Ledbetter, James. Made Possible By: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United
States. London: Verso, 1998; Lewis, Justin, and Toby Miller, eds. Critical Cultural Policy:
A Reader. London: Blackwell Publishing, 2002; McChesney, Robert. Telecommunica-
tions, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928–
1935. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1993; Ouellette, Laurie. Viewers Like You?
How Public TV Failed the People. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002; Wildman,
Sarah. “Tune In, Turn On, Fight Back.” The American Prospect Online, July 3, 2005. http://
www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9860.
Laurie Ouellette
PuBliC oPinion: are Polls deMoCratiC?
Opinion polls should, in theory, be a democratic force, closing the gap be-
tween citizens and their political representatives. However, as a form of public
expression, polls are limited: citizens play little part in their subject or design,
and many of the groups commissioning polls do not see them as a way of deep-
ening democratic expression. Nevertheless, once we understand these limita-
tions, polls can still play a role in keeping political elites in check. Further, they
suggest a more progressive view of the world than the stereotypes often drawn
upon to signify popular opinion.
In 1995, the democratic theorist James Bryce called for a means by which
the “will of the majority of citizens” might be “ascertainable at all times.” His
hope was to provide a greater balance between the power of the people and of
their elected officials, thereby cutting the distance between the electorate and
the political elite. When George Gallup’s polls made this possible in the 1920s,
it seemed that we were on the dawn of a more democratic era.
But many a tale is founded on the idea that we should be careful what we wish
for, and few would now regard opinion polls as the lifeblood of the democratic
state. For many, polls litter rather than enhance the political landscape: they are
derided as the tools of public relations consultants and spin doctors rather than
lauded as the voice of the citizenry. They have contributed toward an ersatz de-
mocracy, a multiple-choice manufacturing turning active citizens into passive
consumers.
So what went wrong? The answer, one might suggest, lies less with polls them-
selves than with the conditions in which they are produced and interpreted.
Despite their limits, polls should not be dismissed as mere marketing tools or