Media and Statistics

Quantative Literacy: Media, Data, and Statistics

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            This is a list I got from www.pollingreport.com, a respected website for statistical data. This polling list shows the polls that many different news organizations have gathered concerning who people are going to vote for in the presidential election.     Most of the polls are fairly close, and they are all pretty recent.

This list is advantageous because it lists many different polls from many sources, instead of relying on just one. It allows you to see that not all polls are the same, and are subjective to the people conducting the poll as well as the people being polled. Through this you are able to find a middle ground, and maybe come away with a more complete picture of the data presented.

 One of the drawbacks is that all of the polls in a list like this devalue the importance of any one poll, and because the polls are differing, you may begin to suspect the validity of any of the polls, when in reality, it is just the opposite.

The greatest strength of this list is the vast amount of information offered in such a little space. Many different organizations conducted the same poll, polling different areas of the country, using different pollsters, and then pollingreport.com has compiled it all into the list. The variety of pollsters and organizations make it so that personal bias on the part of the pollsters is near impossible. The variety of polling areas gives us a better picture of the whole of the U.S., which is what these polls are supposed to represent, instead of just showing us one poll from a certain area and passing it off as an accurate representation of the entire U.S.

The problem with the polls is population. Pollsters only contact a small number of people in a heavily populated area, and may not be getting an accurate representation of that area. This is true with almost any poll, making this form of data gathering rely heavily on statistical estimation. This can in some cases lead pollsters to draw the pollsters to the wrong conclusions.

Overall, the data gathering that takes place in polling must be looked at with an objective eye, rather than accepting it as hard fact. It is a helpful tool in getting a good idea of what a large number of people think in a general area, and gathering this information efficiently and organizing it into readable data, but we have to remember that it has its drawbacks, and should probably be supported by other forms of statistical evidence.

Works Cited

1. Polling Report.com Election Update (http://www.pollingreport.com) Page             accessed 10/21/04