Page 123 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

POLLS
112
War. A Senate resolution condemning Ritchie for libeling the Senate failed, 27-
21. Polk called the resolution a "foul deed," but he was motivated by politics,
not concern for freedom of expression. He condemned other newspapers for not
supporting his policies and said a protracted war would be the fault of Whig
editors and their "treasonable course."
SOURCES: Charles A. McCoy, Polk and the Presidency, 1960; James K. Polk, The
Diary of James K. Polk, 1910.
Charles Caudill

POLLS are used to measure political attitudes, beliefs, and actions of a sample
representing some percentage or aspect of the population. Samples of the pop-
ulation are interviewed. Historically, straw polls were conducted by newspapers
and magazines to measure, unscientifically, voting preferences among the public.
However, in the 1930s, three men from the advertising profession found ways
to apply scientific techniques to polling for better measurement of attitudes.
Those men were George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Archibald Crossley. Through
demographics, the pollsters could reach broader ranges of varied groups and
thereby project more accurately.
Polling became an important part of the political communication process
when in 1936 a poll conducted by the magazine Literary Digest incorrectly
predicted that Franklin Delano Roosevelt would be defeated by Alfred Landon
for the presidency. The new, scientific polling techniques from Gallup and others
predicted that Roosevelt would win. The Literary Digest's error paved the way
for the acceptance of scientific polling techniques to be used by the press to
accurately measure public opinion. Polling used to be done by personal inter-
view, but today nearly all polls are done by telephone.
More important than the use of polls to predict who will win an election is their
use to develop campaign strategy. Candidates rarely offer untested ideas or poli-
cies. Instead, they tell the voters what polls indicate the voters would like to hear.
SOURCE: Erik Barnouw, ed., International Encyclopedia of Communication, 1989.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford and Guido H Stempel III

POLLS AND POLLSTERS. See Gallup Poll; Literary Digest Poll; Elmo
Roper.

PRESIDENTIAL MEDIA MANIPULATION. The president has a clear in-
terest in media content. The media define presidential success or failure, and it
is therefore in the president's political interest to ensure that media coverage is
as favorable as possible. Appropriate coverage can help sway the public agenda,
give impetus to the presidential agenda, and create a favorable climate of opinion
toward the incumbent. To this end recent presidents have used three interrelated
strategies to influence and manipulate media coverage—news conferences, per-
sonal relations with journalists, and the White House Office of Communica-