Public opinion, polls and the media
D.S. Poornananda*
ABSTRACT
Polls have been making headlines in the Indian media in the recent years. Typically these
polls survey citizens about their views on political issues, candidates and incumbents, their
preferences about possible courses of governmental action and their general attitude toward politics
and political process. In order to produce an accurate public opinion poll, a researcher must
successfully perform several tasks. These include: constructing a questionnaire with properly
worded and ordered questions selecting a representative sample, correctly interviewing the
respondents in that sample, analyzing the data and finally drawing the correct conclusions.
Sampling is the most problematic feature of
public opinion polling. The dominant and preferred
mode of sampling public opinion has been probability
sampling. There is no particular virtue in large samples.
If poorly selected, large samples provide no guarantees
of accurate results. Studies have shown that preelection surveys will not have any significant impact
on the vote split since the bandwagon effects and
underdog effects cancel each other. The article analyses
all the above key aspects.
processes and practices by providing a channel through
which citizens could participate in political affairs.
Gallup (1865) claimed that opinion polls could provide
a useful means through which voters would have a
significant input into decision-making. This might be
achieved by objectively measuring the views of voters
and then communicating these to elected
representatives. The ultimate aim of polls would be
increasing the efficiency of the representative
government.
Opinion polling plays a significant role within
the political process of most liberal democratic
societies, where it is used by governments, parties and
the mass media alike. Although the extent to which
polls complement and improve democratic practice in
countries such as India is unclear, media audiences
are becoming major consumer of the results of opinion
research. Substantial media coverage of polls allows
citizens to compare their own beliefs with their fellow
citizens and determine whether their own views are
shared by others. George Gallup, who was a pioneer
in using opinion polling in the United States, believed
that it would serve to enhance and extend democratic
The critics of opinion polling maintain that polls
are simply a sop to the citizenry (Galtung, 1969;
Schumpeter, 1976; Margolis, 1984). They argue that
polls give people a false sense of being influenced
when, in reality, political power is held and expected
by a few elites who may or may not act in the public
interest. Margolis (1984) claims that polls may not be
the optimal way to measure public opinion on
politically and socially sensitive topics. He argues that
in some instances actual behaviour provides a more
valid expression of public opinion than verbal
responses to survey questions do. Some have also
argued that polls are needed for the ideologically
* Professor & Chairman, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Kuvempu University, Shankaraghatta – 577451, Distt. Shivmogga
(Karnataka) (email ID : poornananda@yahoo.com)
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hollow men who do politics like a soap-marketing
campaign (Lipari, 1999; Korzi, 2000). Holding
frequent polls is seen as an obsession with
salesmanship rather than with governance (Henn,
2001).
The advocates of polls have been criticized for
completely ignoring many important features of the
governing process such as dialogue, exchange, and
bargaining. Some argue against opinion polls on the
ground that citizens select representatives to use their
best judgments, not to slavishly follow public opinion.
Leo Bogart (1972) has written a provocative book
where he asks what the opinions revealed by the polls
are worth. He points out that many citizens have not
thought about an issue until a poll taker questions them.
He has argued that unwilling to appear ignorant or
uncaring, citizens often give hasty and uninformed
answers. According to him, such uninformed and
flippant opinions cannot be considered as “public
opinion”.
Despite arguments against polling, the
pervasiveness of polls is clearly demonstrated by their
increased use in recent years. The proliferation of polls
is evident in television and newspaper coverage.
Typically, these polls survey citizens about their views
on political issues, candidates and incumbents, their
preferences about possible courses of governmental
action and their general attitude toward politics and
political process. Ordinary citizens’ reactions to public
opinion polling are generally positive, although there
are specific areas of criticism and skepticism with
regard to the accuracy of survey results.
In order to produce an accurate public opinion
poll, a researcher must successfully perform several
tasks. These include : constructing a questionnaire with
properly worded and ordered questions selecting a
representative sample, correctly interviewing the
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respondents in that sample, analyzing the data properly
and finally drawing the correct conclusions. But before
any of these tasks can be performed, a researcher must
ask fundamental questions. Is the proposed topic of
the poll one on which citizens have genuine opinions?
It is then that the topic is suitable for a public opinion
survey. But if the topic is so remote from and irrelevant
to citizens’ concerns that they do not hold real views
on it, then any poll on the topic will measure nonattitudes rather than attitudes. Any information
obtained will be suspect—even when the questions are
properly worded, the sample scientifically selected and
the data appropriately analyzed.
Sample representativeness
Sampling is the most problematic feature of
public opinion polling. The requirement of the sample
is that it must enable the researchers to generalize from
the sample results to the broader population from which
the sample was drawn. Typically, the sample is of
interest because of what it reveals about the overall
population and not because of the actual sample
characteristics themselves. The dominant and preferred
mode of sampling public opinion has been probability
sampling. One of the important advantages of
probability sampling is that they tend to be more
representative than other kinds of samples because in
large part they avoid the selection biases inherent in
non-probability samples in which the investigator has
discretion over who should be included in the sample.
One of the major reasons for the famous failure
of the polls in 1948 in the US was an error in the
sampling method. Interviewers were given quotas of
voters by age, race, sex and income status, but selection
of subjects was left to the interviewer. Such quota
samples are far better than “straw polls” that depend
on voluntary response, but they are not probability
samples. Quota samples favored the well-dressed and
prosperous, because the interviewers found it easier
to approach such people. In political terms such a poll
had a Republican bias (Moore, 1991). Gallup and
others had overestimated the Republican vote leading
to incorrect forecast. The opinion polls switched to
probability samples after 1948. Probability sampling
entails procedures for selecting the sample that
eliminate subjective biases about sample composition.
In a country like India, stratified sampling would be
more appropriate. The major advantages of stratified
sampling are : a reduction in sampling error and a
guarantee of representativeness with respect to
variables used in stratifying. The reduction in sampling
error occurs if the strata differ from each other, but
internally are homogenous.
Sample size is a major puzzle for Indians who
wonder how a national sample of a few thousand
respondents can accurately represent the views of over
1.2 billion people. While many of the surveys in the
United States use a national sample size of 1500 for a
population of 300 million, the sample size in India may
range from 5,000 to 50,000. Given Indian diversity, a
larger sample might be helpful in arriving at accurate
results. The NDTV opinion polls on the performance
of the UPA Government, conducted in May 2010, used
a sample of 34,277 across the country. For details, see
http:/www.ndtv.com/news/india/one-year-of-upa-2.
Statistical and probability theory explain why
small sizes suffice to generate valid results, but these
theories are not very enlightening to people who lack
an extensive mathematical background. Because the
major cost in public opinion polling is on interviewing
the selected sample, it is critical that the researcher
selects a sample that suits both purposes and the budget
of the project. There is no particular virtue in large
samples. If poorly selected, large samples provide no
guarantees of accurate results. One determinant of
sample size is the amount of sampling error that can
be tolerated in a poll. Sampling error is simply the
difference between the estimates obtained from the
sample and the true population value. Investigators
often select national samples of sufficient size to
generate a sampling error of about 4 percent. This
means that if the sample indicates, for example, that
52 per cent of the respondents approve of Prime
Minister’s foreign policy, the actual value is likely to
be in the range of 48 percent to 56 percent (52 minus
or plus 4 percent). How likely it is that the actual value
will fall within that range is measured by the confidence
level. In this example, a 95 percent confidence level
would mean that in 95 out of 100 samples that might
be selected, the sample would generate an estimate of
approval within the range of 48 percent to 56 percent.
One way to reduce a sampling error is to increase the
sample size, but a larger sample entails higher costs.
A sampling error of 4 percent is normally considered
acceptable. Although the sampling error of the overall
sample may be only 4 percent, the sampling error
associated with estimates based on subsets of the
sample can be substantially higher, particularly for
small groups within the sample. In general, as the
original sample is subdivided into increasingly smaller
subsets, the sampling error becomes larger and larger
(Asher, 1996).
When a sample of citizens is interviewed, not
every question has a response from every respondent.
Some respondents may refuse to answer, others may
give answers that are screened out because they reflect
non-attitudes, and still others may have no opinion on
the matter. In some instances, there may be a substantial
difference between the total sample size and the actual
number of people responding to or being included in
the reporting of a particular question. Let’s assume
that 2,500 citizens are asked about their vote
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preferences a month before election. It is possible that
only 80 percent of the sample are registered voters and
only 60 percent of those registered will actually vote
on the election day. If the investigator wants to report
the vote preferences of likely voters only and is able
to identify that group, then the effective sample has
shrunk from 2500 to 1200 (0.80x0.60x2500) with an
attendant increase in sampling error. Of these 1200,
three percent might refuse to reveal their preferences
and another 20 percent might be unsure, thereby
reducing the 1200 to 900 likely voters with definite
vote preferences, or just 36 percent of the original
sample of 2500. This is the actual sample out of the
total sample. Of the 900 voters, 400 may intend to vote
for party A, 200 for party B and the remaining for other
parties. It is important for the pollster to report this
split and describe the subset of the sample from which
it is calculated. Unless explained in detail, readers of
newspapers and viewers of television would have no
idea how the results came about.
In what are called as pseudo polls (Orton, 1982)
the representativeness of the respondents is highly
questionable. For example, the print and electronic
media often encourage members of their audiences to
write or phone or send SMSs to express their views.
But even with hundreds or thousands of replies, these
straw polls are usually not representative, simply
because people who voluntarily choose to participate
are likely to differ in important ways from the overall
population (Asher, 1998). They may be more
interested, informed, and concerned about the topic at
hand and thus hold views different from those of the
overall population. Allowing citizens to select
themselves into a survey guarantees biased results
because of the motivations that lead people to
participate in such surveys in the first place.
Since the 1980s, magazines have regularly
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published the results of surveys of their readers on
several issues. Typically, magazines conduct these
surveys by including the questionnaire in the magazine
and encouraging readers to complete the survey and
mail it back. Despite the large number of replies to a
typical magazine survey, one must be very careful
generalizing the results to any broader population. Selfselection presents a double problem. First, the readers
and subscribers to various magazines may not be
representative of the broader population of which they
are members. Second, those individuals who actually
complete the questionnaires may not be reflective of
the magazines’ readers and subscribers in the first
place. Nevertheless, the results of these surveys
typically receive a lot of media coverage and probably
enhance magazine sales. Such surveys are highly
flawed and may give misleading portraits of public
opinion. Because of loaded and unfair questions
wording, self-selection biases in the respondents,
outright efforts to stack the results, or other
deficiencies, pseudo polls are poor ways to ascertain
public opinion.
Questions and response choices
Answers to questions seeking opinions are more
sensitive to changes in the structure, emphasis, wording
and sequence and so on than are those to factual
questions. The insensitivity of opinion questions does
not imply instability of opinion among respondents.
Rather it is an indication that opinion is many-sided.
Questions asked in different ways will seem to get at
different aspects of the opinion. If they result in
different answers, it is largely because respondents are,
in effect, answering different questions.
When questions are poorly formulated and
fundamentally flawed, very little analysis can be done.
Use of a loaded word or an inflammatory phrase can
affect the pattern of response to a survey question.
Individuals and groups that have vested interests can
easily construct questions that will generate desired
responses. The response alternatives they provide to
the interviewees can also help them achieve the
intended result. If a middle choice is not listed as one
of the choices, then fewer citizens will opt for that
choice and this can alter the interpretation of a poll.
Bad question wording may occur when polls are
conducted by interested parties whose aim is to
generate specific responses. In many cases, polling
organizations have arrived at divergent conclusions
simply because they employed different questions on
a particular topic. Less obvious than the impact of
question wording is the effect on responses of the order
and context in which specific questions are placed. For
example, a survey, in which the popularity of the prime
minister is measured after a series of questions dealing
with scandals in his administration and difficulties with
the economy, is likely to get negative reactions. The
context in which a particular survey is embedded can
help shape responses to that item.
A typical survey includes many questions and
the placement of a particular question can affect the
responses to it. Questions should be worded in
unbiased, fair, and straightforward fashion. Even when
the sponsor has no axe to grind question wording
choices can be very consequential to the results
obtained.
Studies have shown that survey questions, even
apparently straight forward ones, must be adequately
pre-tested before they are included in an actual poll
(Fowler, 1992). Ambiguous questions are to be avoided
at all costs. If an ambiguous word creeps in, different
people will understand the question differently and will,
in effect, be answering different questions. Vague
questions encourage vague answers. Using words and
phrases like ‘kind of’, ‘fairly’, ‘generally’, ‘often’,
‘many’, ‘much the same’, ‘on the whole’, ‘frequently’,
‘occasionally’, ‘rarely’, ‘recently’, ‘in the last few
years’ can be ambiguous because different people have
different understanding of these words.
The presence of non-attitudes is one of the
simplest yet most perplexing problems in public
polling. Too often in a survey context, people will
respond to questions about which they have no genuine
attitudes or opinions. Even worse, the analyst treats
the non-attitude responses as if they represent actual
public opinions. Under these circumstances, a
misleading portrait of public opinion can emerge. That
is, no distinction is made between people with real
views on an issue and those whose responses simply
reflect their desire to appear in an interview situation
as informed citizens.
It is often difficult to differentiate between
genuine attitude holders and persons merely expressing
non-attitudes (Asher, 1995). An interview is a social
situation in which a respondent interacts in person or
by telephone with an interviewer the respondent does
not know. Few people in such circumstances want to
admit that they are uninformed particularly on an issue
others might expect them to be informed.
One of the strategies is make it socially
acceptable for respondents to say they are unfamiliar
with the topic of the question. This response would
result in the question being skipped. Another strategy
is to employ screening or filter questions to separate
likely attitude holders from non-attitude respondents.
These strategies minimize the number of responses that
are superficial reactions to the interview stimulus.
The response alternatives included in an item
affect the extent of non-attitudes. Research on the
effects of including a middle choice in the response
alternatives shows that including a middle option
typically generates about 25 percent more
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noncommittal responses. Bishop (1987) has
demonstrated how the presence or absence of a middle
response alternative can affect survey responses. Based
on a series of experiments, Bishop’s work confirmed
earlier research in finding that citizens are much more
likely to choose the middle alternative when it is
included in the question than when it is omitted.
Moreover, simply mentioning the middle category in
the preface of a survey question will encourage
respondents to select that option even when it is not
listed among the response alternatives. People who
select a middle alternative when it is offered would
not necessarily answer the question in the same way
as other respondents if forced to choose between the
polar alternatives when the middle option is not
provided.
The interpretation of a “don’t know” response
can be especially problematic since ‘don’t know’ can
mean many different things. For some people, ‘don’t
know’ simply reflects the absence of a real attitude on
the topic, but for other people it may represent an
inability to choose among contending positions.
Respondents may be too insecure to take a stance or
they may decline to state their opinions out of a strong
sense of privacy or because they do not want to offend
anybody. Some respondents may want to hasten the
completion of the interview by saying ‘don’t know’
thereby avoiding follow-up questions.
The higher the level of education of respondents,
the less likely they give ‘no opinion’ replies (Converse,
1997). Respondents with cognitive sophistication—
less formal education and limited vocabularies—are
more likely to be influenced by the order of responses.
One must be sensitive to the potential distortion and
even manipulation of responses that might occur
because of how the response choices are presented.
Is it a good idea to force responses into polar
categories and minimize middle or neutral answers?
Or is it better to encourage people to choose the middle
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position? The answer, of course, is that it depends. If
people have genuine attitudes, then the public opinion
researcher wants those attitudes clearly expressed. The
inclusion of a middle category in such a situation might
result in cautious citizens opting for the middle
position, particularly on controversial issues where they
might not want to reveal their true opinions to the
interviewer. Yet the exclusion of a middle category
might lead people with weak or nonexistent opinions
on an issue to choose one of the genuine response
options thereby creating false impressions of genuine
attitudes (Asher, 1995).
Some times hypothetical situations are presented
to citizens and then they are asked to react to these
situations. More often than not, the information
obtained is of dubious utility because the hypothetical
situations have forced the respondents into a world that
has little real meaning for them.
Some surveys are commissioned by public and
private bodies to address specific concerns.
Commissioned surveys are likely to be high quality
enterprises mainly because the sponsors have a genuine
need for accurate information to address some
organizational goal or problem. Many other groups,
however, conduct surveys for a different reason—not
to address a public concern scientifically and
objectively, but instead to promote a certain position
and to convince the public of the wisdom of that stand.
To that end, a survey is designed to yield desired
results, this is most often accomplished by the use of
highly loaded questions, although more subtle methods
are also used.
Interpreting election polls
Most election polls are sponsored by the mass
media. Polls are central focus of their election coverage.
The use of polls in reporting elections is seen as
encouraging a horse-race mentality among the media
instead of focusing on issues and the candidates’
qualifications. According to Moser and Kalton (1985)
“election forecasts, although the most publicized of
polling activities, are in a sense the least valuable, there
is after all, little point in knowing approximately today
what will be known accurately tomorrow—apart from
the fact that forecasts of any kind appeal to our sporting
instincts and that it is of some value to the parties to
know the trends in opinion” (p.18-19). For the media
that treat elections as sporting events, the dominant
theme becomes who is ahead and who is behind, who
is gaining and who is falling back, as measured by the
polls (Broh, 1980; Asher, 1992). Many a time, media
polls go beyond recording levels of support for the
candidates by addressing topics such as patterns of
support for the candidates among groups of voters
defined by their demographic characteristics and issue
stances.
There has been widespread speculation about
how polls affect voters. Some argue that polls that show
one candidate or party ahead of another increase the
incentives for supporters of the trailing candidate or
party to change their preference and climb on to the
winning candidate’s or party’s bandwagon. Others
emphasize underdog effects. They claim that
sympathetic voters rally around the candidate or party
the polls show to be losing. The bandwagon effect
would require that leading candidates consistently
increase their margin, while the underdog effect
predicts that the losing candidate or party will
inexorably gain on the leaders. These simple kinds of
effects have not shown up consistently in surveys
(Marsh, 1984). Some studies have shown that preelection surveys could not have any significant impact
on the vote split since the bandwagon effects and
underdog effects cancel each other.
Various practitioners of polling and survey
research have become concerned about what they see
as increased disinterest, skepticism, cynicism, or even
hostility toward the polls.
To combat these problems, Black (1991)
advocates greater sensitivity toward the questions that
citizens may be asking about how the entire survey
was carried out. The Press Council of India has
suggested that whenever the newspapers publish prepoll surveys, they should take care to preface them
conspicuously by indicating the institutions which have
carried such surveys, the individuals and organizations
which have commissioned the surveys, the size and
nature of sample selected, the method of selection of
the sample for the findings and the possible margin of
error in the findings.
The media usually provide information about
date of the interviews, the method of data collection,
the size of the actual sample, and the sampling error
of the overall sample. The more information that is
provided about the methodology of a poll, the better
consumers can judge the soundness of the poll results.
All reports of surveys released for public should
provide information with regard to sponsorship of the
survey, dates of interview, method of obtaining the
interview, population that was sampled, size of the
sample, size and description of the sub-sample, if the
survey report relies primarily on less than the total
sample, complete wording of questions upon which
the release is based and the percentages upon which
conclusions are based. Without access to the complete
results of polls, citizens cannot easily evaluate how
well the media report on the technical aspects of
polling. It is even more problematic for them to
evaluate how well the media describe and interpret the
substance of public opinion polls. Because
interpretation of poll data can be highly judgmental
and value laden, it may be difficult to demonstrate that
one particular interpretation is superior to another
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except in cases where obvious misreading of the data
have occurred or where blatant biases have been built
into the analysis. Even simple description can pose a
problem if time and space constraints force the media
to cover only a subset of the items on a topic.
One of the criticisms against the media is that
they promote the polls to such a position of prominence
that the polls themselves become regular topics for
news stories. Media in their role as sponsors of polls
have gone into the business of creating the news rather
than simply reporting it. More and more media have
developed their own polling capabilities, and in order
to justify the sizable expenditure they may increasingly
report poll-based stories that are not newsworthy in
the traditional sense.
The timing of the pre-election poll influences
its accuracy, the closer to the election the poll is
conducted, the more accurate its results are likely to
be (Crespi, 1988). Late polls can capture the effects of
last minute events and campaign activities that may
influence outcomes. In contrast, at the time of early
polls voters have little information about the
candidates, their attitudes about those candidates are
highly volatile with the acquisition of some new
information about the contenders.
An investigator examining poll results has
tremendous leeway in deciding which items to analyze,
which simple subsets or breakdowns to present, and
how to interpret the statistical results. The investigator
may emphasize the results from one question, perhaps
because of space and time constraints and the desire
to keep matters simple, or because particular results
best support the analyst’s own policy and ignore
subgroups whose responses deviate from the overall
pattern. Time and space limitations or the investigator’s
own preferences may influence these choices. Besides,
two investigators may interpret identical poll results
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in sharply different ways depending on the perspectives
and values they bring to their data analysis. Analyzing
and interpreting data are not automatic objective
processes, but instead entail a high degree of
subjectivity and judgment. Subjectivity may not mean
deliberate bias or distortion but simple professional
judgments about the importance and relevance of
information.
Accuracy in exit polls
Exit polls are interviews with voters as they
leave polling booths. Pollsters not only ask voters for
whom they voted but also collect some information
on the issue positions and demographic characteristics
of the respondents. Exit polls are conducted by major
news organizations to predict and explain the outcomes
of parliamentary and assembly elections. Since exit
polls are polls of actual voters, they avoid the enduring
problem faced by pre-election surveys where
determining who will actually vote is a problem. One
of the advantages of exit polls is that they can be
quickly tabulated. Almost instantaneous predictions or
descriptions of selection outcomes are possible. This
advantage has become a central selling point for exit
polls as television channels compete with each other
to be the first to declare the results. While some scholars
have argued that exit polls generate rich information
that enables both journalists and social scientists to
understand better the factors that help shape the voters’
choices (Mitofsky, 1992), others have argued that exit
polls do more harm than good to the political process
(Orton, 1982; Moser & Kalton, 1985; Ray, 2007).
Although no significant impact of the exit polls
on the outcome of the elections has been established,
it is believed that they will influence voting behaviour.
Some claim that exit polls cause citizens to lose
confidence in the electoral process. The impact of exit
polls on voting becomes a matter of debate when an
election is held in phases as happened in 2004. If a
rigorous sampling and estimation process is followed,
then the “results” are also known with some accuracy
long before voters in the subsequent phases vote
(Reddy, 2004).
The Indian experience has shown that exit polls
are not always accurate. What went wrong with the
prediction in 2004 has not been fully analyzed.
Although the impact of the 2004 exit polls could not
be explained they triggered stock market crash
(Mukherjee, 2004) even when two more phases of
polling were yet to be completed. There was a virtual
“bloodbath” at the stock markets on April 27, 2004
with the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index
(Sensex) crashing by 213 points at close of trading,
the biggest fall after March 13, 2001 when the last
stock scam broke out. The fall was attributed to the
totally unexpected exit poll results which were pointing
towards a hung Parliament. The market had assumed
that the National Democratic Alliance would come
back to power. Results of the exit polls indicating a
hung Parliament, therefore, came as a shock. The
declaration of the election results showed that the exit
polls were off the mark. Most of the television channels
and newspapers projected that the National Democratic
Alliance would win. Most market-men had been caught
off-guard by the exit poll results.
Unlike the exit polls of 2004, the 2009 polls
predicted a clear lead for the United Progressive
Alliance over the National Democratic Alliance.
Media had learnt from their 2004 fiasco and had
adopted a rigorous sampling procedure. But, the
question remains as to what purpose do exit polls serve
other than creating dramatic political news if they are
announced just three days before the counting of votes
begins.
The Election Commission of India has banned
declaration of exit poll results until voting is completed.
According to the guidelines of the EC, in case of a
multi-phased election and in elections of different
states, no result of any opinion or exit poll should be
published, publicised or disseminated by any media at
any time during the period starting from 48 hours till
the poll is concluded in all the phases in all states. But
questions remain as to what extent predictions of final
outcome will help strengthen democracy.
Conclusion
The existence of several polls provides the
stimulus of competition and thus encourages
developments in opinion poll methodology. To the
pollster, the value of election forcasts is that they offer
one of the few opportunities of demonstrating that their
methods are sound. Success in predicting elections is
in many ways an unfair criterion of the value of survey
methods generally, for this sort of forecasting faces
special problem, notably the uncertainty of the voting
turnout and of what the undecided voter will do. The
2004 experience has shaken confidence in opinion polls
and perhaps in survey generally. It is important that it
should be subjected to high level investigation so that
such errors do not occur again. The media which
conduct opinion polls should provide information with
regard to the population that was sampled, method of
obtaining the interview, size of the sample, complete
wording of questions and the percentages upon which
conclusions are based. Then only criticism and
skepticism with regard to the accuracy of survey results
can be addressed.
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Researching new media —
Complications, illusions and challenges
Dev Vrat Singh*
ABSTRACT
The new media is the future of media. Researching a media that is constantly evolving at a
very fast pace is really a difficult and challenging job. Researches in the field of new media are
gaining popularity among media academicians world over. However, in Indian context, very few
scholars are taking serious note of this. This research article is an endeavor to collect various
research areas in new media at one place and discuss about complications, illusions and challenges
faced by the scholars. Besides these, the concept of new media and its nature has also been discussed
with a hope that it would provide a very basic knowledge about the emerging world of new media
and encourage media scholars to explore it.
Introduction
When Canadian literary scholar, Marshal
Mcluhan wrote his eminent book “Understanding
Media : The Extensions of Man” in 1964, he was not
aware of the fact that the concepts he was propounding
will become reality within a span of few decades. Two
most fashionable and widely quoted terms given by
Mcluhan were - Medium is Message and Global
Village. In fact, he was discussing these terms in the
context of electronic media, mainly radio and
television, and their impact on society and culture. He
proclaimed that new forms of media transform our
experience of ourselves and our society and this
influence is ultimately more important than the content
of specific messages. He also used the term global
village to refer to the new form of social organization
emerging as instantaneous electronic media tie the
entire world into one great social, political and cultural
1
system.
Convergence is the new buzzword in new media
technology that made it possible to communicate at a
very fast pace. There are three basic technologies which
are mainly responsible for the convergence and
emergence of new media. Firstly, communication
Satellites made global broadcasting possible. Secondly,
digitization ensured unified platform for data storage,
data retrieval and data processing. And, lastly, through
optical fiber, we could send and receive huge quantity
of data in never-before speed and ease.
What is new media?
Defining new media is as difficult as researching
this phenomenon. Known by several names – digital
media, cyber media, web media, online media, internet
media, virtual media, convergence media—this
technological occurrence is believed to be the future
of media. Without sticking to a particular media,
technology or mode of communication, academicians
world over have agreed to name this as new media.
This word gives glamorous connotation to something
new. It covers the whole gamut of things that is related
to this debate.
1. Baran and Davis (2006), Mass Communication Theory : Foundation, Ferment and Future, Thomson Wadsworth (Indian Edition), p.302-305
*Reader, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana
(email ID : vrat.dev@gmail.com)
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‘New media’ has gained currency as a term
because of its useful inclusiveness. It avoids, at the
expense of its generality and its ideological overtones,
the reductions of some of its alternatives. It avoids the
emphasis on purely technical and formal definition, as
in ‘digital’ or ‘electronic’ media; the stress on a single,
ill-defined and contentious quality as in ‘interactive
media’, or the limitation to one set of machines and
practices as in ‘computer-mediated communication,
2
(CMC).
New media is a term meant to encompass the
emergence of digital, computerized or networked
information and communication technologies in the
latter part of the 20th century. Most technologies
described as “new media” are digital, often having
characteristics of being manipulable, net-workable,
3
dense, compressible and impartial.
Nature of new media
To understand the concept of new media, it
would be wise to compare it with the old media in
reference to textual experience, genre, textual form,
technology, patterns of organization, production,
distribution, and consumption of computer-mediated
communications. New media is truly global medium
not only in terms of consumption of its content but
production and distribution also. Inherently, it is digital
and provides a unified platform for various kinds of
data i.e. audio, video, visuals, graphics, animation and
texts. Being convergence media, we can call it a
multimedia also where we can work with many media
simultaneously.
The level of interactivity is extremely high and
instant in new media. This feature makes new media
more active that gives its use enormous opportunities
to participate in content formation. The commentators,
therefore, call this medium more democratic and user
friendly. All earlier media provide facility of one or
two levels of communication. For example, telephone
is used for interpersonal communication only while
radio and television is for doing mass communication.
Whereas, in new media we can communicate at
different levels at the same time. Mailing is for
interpersonal communication, social community sites
do group communication, blogs are for public
communication and web sites are doing mass
communication. This makes the new media a medium
of multiple communications.
Hypertextuality is another feature that gives new
media a very unique user-friendly shape. Moreover
the model of information flow in new media is quite
different from the older media. Interpersonal
communication is one-to-one, group communication
is one-to-many, and mass communication is some-tomany, while in new media there is a paradigm shift to
the model of many-to-many communication. New
media first time provides a virtual space where anybody
can be visible for free or lesser amount. In this way,
new media is playing the role of great equalizer.
Emerging areas of research
If new media has come up with umpteen
opportunities, it has also created much confusion. It
has created a havoc of technology among the audience.
Lots of new terminologies and concepts arise every
day out of new media putting up a constant challenge
before academicians and users to understand and react.
For new media researchers, emailing, blogging,
community sites, bulletin boards, chatting rooms, you
tube, virtual life, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay online
games, telecommunications, e-journalism may be of
wide interest.
2. Lister, M. Dovey, J. Giddings, S. Grant, I. and Kelly, K. (2009), New Media—A Critical Introduction, Routledge, page 11-12
3. Wikipedia.com
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Uses and gratifications researches : Just like
any other media, lot of studies have been
conducted about the usage patterns of internet
and during nineties many scholars across the
globe tried to find out what the users do with
internet. The main queries were how much new
medium is used for what purpose. What are the
timings of usage and what are the user’s
experiences. Later on it was also dig up that what
is the gratification level of users in terms of
services they avail from the new media. The
study of the level of satisfaction among users is
useful for the evolution of better websites and
web-based services. At the primary stage,
scholars also debated over the definition of
internet user. Like what should be the minimum
level of usages for a person to be called internet
user.
Interactivity studies : The word 'interactivity' is
the most admired term that has been researched
in relation to the new media. It is claimed that
new media is first ever media of this kind which
can boast of maximum level of interactivity as
far as user’s interface is concerned. Many studies
world over have been conducted to check the
models, level and nature of interactivity in
various websites. As the term interactivity is
closely associated with the democratic and
participative media, scholars tried to find out to
what extent new media is providing
opportunities for its users to participate in
content production. How many facilities of
customization are available to the internet users?
What are the level of involvement and attitudes
of users towards any website?
Psychological research : Having increased
hours before computer screens, new media is
impacting heavily on the psychological and
physical health of its users. Especially in western
countries, scholars of human psychology are
worried about internet addiction among its users.
Lots of case studies are being conducted to
evaluate the mental state of heavy users of
internet and video games, their perceptions of
virtual and real world of experiences,
relationship between internet usage habits and
physical diseases arising among new media
users. Interestingly, most of these researches are
inter-disciplinary in nature and being done by
non-media scholars.
l
Socio-political researches : As the new media
is reshaping human relations, social behavior,
impacting social institutions, changing political
systems and processes, sociologists and political
scientists have started researching new media
with their own paradigms. How mobiles and new
media devices are intervening into human
interaction, facilitating faster communication,
creating complex social networks, changing
patterns of democracy and specially elections
and making possible the global presence of a
person are some of the issues which can be
researched. Social community sites like
Facebook, Orkut, bebo, linkedin etc. are being
studied for analyzing the networking patterns
of modern society. While blog journalism is
making news in American Presidential elections
and attracting scholars for studies, exploratory
researches about interpersonal communication
through mobile phones are also gaining
recognition among media scholars.
l
Journalism studies : Since the new media has
become a powerful medium of journalism also,
online journalism is another popular stream of
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media research. Some scholars are analyzing the
content of news websites and blogs while studies
about citizen journalism are also gaining
momentum. In these researches, usually the
questions are: how the news is presented on
websites, how this differs from other media,
what are the features of designing and packaging
of news in new media, what are the navigational
features of news websites, how old media is
changing its way of doing things under the
pressure of online newspapers.
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Studies related to digital divide : This term has
been widely discussed in reference to the impact
of new media over diverse communities in the
world. New media opened up enormous
potential for creating unified and networked
society and theoreticians hailed new media as
great equalizer but very soon it was realized that
new media is creating digital divide among
various societies on the basis of technology and
information ownerships. Especially in
developing countries, scholars focused new
media studies upon the analysis of nature and
extent of digital divide.
Gender studies : New media is the largest
provider of pornography, online games and
various kinds of entertainment. Lots of
researches are being conducted about
pornography and video games in gender
traditions. Representation of female body and
image is prime concern in this stream.
Regulation studies : New media has posed
umpteen challenges of privacy, regulation and
surveillance before the society. Increasing cases
of hacking and sabotaging viruses, spyware,
worms etc. have made it impossible to function
fearlessly. Moreover, governments world over
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July-September 2010
are trying hard to police the online activities.
Common user is soft target for cyber crimes as
our police system is yet not prepared to combat
this. Scholars are studying the habits and modus
operandi of hackers just to provide with
solutions to better surveillance.
l
Philosophical researches : After the advent of
new media the concept of time and space has
undergone a lot of change. Hence it is imperative
for the philosophers to readjust the existing
theories and concepts in the context of changing
global information and communication
environment. New media demands altogether a
new kind of human being from its users having
global perspectives and ideology suitable for
whole nature and human world. Lots of
theoretical work is also needed to be done in
this direction.
Complications with new media
Researching contemporary media is more
difficult than the media of the past. New media is ever
growing and media-in-flux, therefore it is more
complicated and hazardous to study such a subject that
has not evolved substantially yet or is still evolving.
New media does not have a very clear picture in terms
of definitions of various aspects of the subject. But
perhaps that’s the situation which humbly invites
scholars to draw the clear picture and establish the facts
scientifically and help growing the new media as a
subject. For example, till now sociologists had studied
a lot about the social behaviour of teenagers but now
with the new mobile phones loaded with internet
facilities this has become more multifarious,
untraceable and invisible, hence difficult to study and
analyse.
Interestingly, academicians have not agreed
upon a single definition of new media and the reason
Challenges of new media research
is quite obvious. The picture of new media is very hazy
and ever changing that needs to be redefined every
In most of the cases, content of new media is
under scrutiny for correlating it to the views, habits
and needs of its users. But researchers face difficulty
when it comes to the analysis of content. Ever updating
content of digital streaming media makes it very
difficult for scholars to record the content for deeper
analysis. There are three ways to record and store the
data :
moment. New media has posed a challenge before the
existing communication models. Some academicians
refuse to accept it as a medium of mass communication.
They say it is merely a huge library of data available
online and user is at liberty to pick and choose out of
it. Moreover, there is no broadcast model like radio
and television. Actually, these theoreticians are failing
to appreciate new features of streaming new media.
l
Saving on the hard drive : The easiest way to
store the data from the net is to save it as-it-is
on the hard drive—text, visuals, animation,
audio etc. Researcher may suggest saving it on
the computer from the internet with the date of
retrieval and website URL. But some of the web
pages and files available on the net are not
allowed to be saved by the owner. Most of the
times when we save the web page with ‘save
as’ option it stores all useless data attached to it
online which occupies a lot of space. Moreover
on many occasions, stored web pages later on
need specific fonts, software and plug-ins to
display the content properly. In the absence of
technical knowledge, researcher may end up
nowhere.
l
Taking print-outs : Researcher may take printouts of the data as it is available on the net so
that it can be referred back as and when required.
This may be a costly affair especially when the
amount of data is huge. Moreover, audio-video
data cannot be stored through this mode.
l
Taking digital image with camera : There is one
more way to store the data for research, take
out the snaps from the computer screen with the
help of a domestic digital still camera and save
it as image format. This is useful where the
Obviously it is a matter of great challenge to research
a media that is yet to consolidate its characteristics.
The universe of new media is very large and
virtual in nature. Researchers, therefore, always face
a problem in locating it geographically. Moreover, if
the universe is decided, the very next problem will arise
how to decide the sample size and how to select the
sample. Once you decide the size of sample, the process
of data collection is to begin and here also researcher
may easily get headache while he/she finds a huge
amount of data on net. The biggest challenge before a
scholar is to check the authenticity of new media text.
Academicians call this phenomenon ‘information
overload’. The best way in this regard is to use
information from the official websites only.
Although internet research has become popular
very quickly, the popularity of the methodology does
not mean that the methodology is inherently valid and
reliable. Internet can be a highly cost effective tool to
approach the respondents across the globe. At the same
time, researchers do know who answers an internet
questionnaire. Moreover it’s very difficult to determine
if the sample is representative of the population from
4
which the sample was selected.
4. Wimmer, Roger D. and Dominick, Joseph R. (2005), Mass Media Research - An introduction, Thomson Wadsworth, p. 436-439.
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number of pages is small. But sometimes the
size of a web page is much larger than the size
of the screen. One has to crawl down to the end
to see it completely; in that case, one has to take
more than one snap for one web page.
Last but not the least
Internet has happened to be the largest reference
point for researchers. Many times scholars quote the
text available on the net and don’t know how to give
the reference to that in their paper. Here is a format
recommended by the American Psychological
Association (2000, October 12). Retrieved January 3,
2001, from http://www.apa.org/journals/webref.html
REFERENCES
1.
Lister, M. Dovey, J. Giddings, S. Grant, I. and
Kelly, K. (2009), New Media-A Critical
Introduction, Routledge
2.
Burg, Jennifer (2009), The Science of Digital
98
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Media, Pearson Prentice Hall
3.
Balnaves, M. Donald, S.H. and Shoesmith, B.
(2009), Media Theories and Approaches–A
Global Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan
4.
Baran and Davis (2006), Mass Communication
Theory: Foundation, Ferment and Future,
Thomson Wadsworth (Indian Edition), p.302305
5.
Rubin, R.B., Rubin, A.M., Haridakis P.M. Piele
L.J. (2010), Communication Research–
Strategies and Sources, Wadsworth Cengage
Learning
6.
Wimmer, Roger D. and Dominick Joseph R.
(2005), Mass Media Research – An introduction,
Thomson Wadsworth
7.
Prasad, Kiran (2009), e-Journalism, New Media
and News Media (Edited), B.R. Publishing
Corporation, Delhi
Public relations research : Some
perspectives
Waheeda Sultana*
ABSTRACT
Research in PR has become necessary in today's complex society. Most public relations
practitioners consider research as important a tool to them as a stethoscope is to a doctor. Without
research, practitioner is reduced to taking, at best, educated guesses regarding the problem and
potential intervention programs, and thus runs a greater risk of being unable to predict outcomes
accurately. But management today demands more–measurement, analysis, and evaluation at every
stage of the PR process. It is necessary for the PR practitioner to understand - the attitudes, hopes,
fears, concerns, frustrations - of various relevant publics. This paper examines the different methods
of research used by a PR practitioner such as surveys, focus group interviews, opinion polls and
employee attitude surveys in the conduct of public relations work. Organizations are thereby
prevented from wasting time, effort and money in attacking problems that don't really exist.
Public Relations (PR) is the art of managing
communication between an organization and its key
publics to build, manage and sustain a positive image.
Public relations involves evaluation of public attitudes
and public opinions; formulation and implementation
of an organization’s procedures and policy regarding
communication with its publics; coordination of
communications programmes; developing rapport and
goodwill through a two-way communication process;
and fostering a positive relationship between an
organization and its public. Public Relations often
involves news management—optimizing good news
and forestalling bad news. Equally, good public
relations managers conduct “damage control” when a
disaster occurs, gathering the facts and assessing the
situation to prepare appropriate information to be
offered to the mass media.
Research in PR — the origin
The origin of PR research actually dates to 1920.
Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, laid the ground
work for a social – scientific approach to public
relations in his book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, the
first ever on public relations. His book also signals a
long standing connection between PR and Public
Opinion research.
The role of research has become increasingly
important in public relations. Research is the systematic
collection and interpretation of information to increase
understanding. “You cannot practice public relations
today - successfully or effectively - without research”.
It is essential to any PR activity and is the beginning
of a process that seeks to bring about a specific
objective. A PR activity is like a journey. The better
prepared a person is for journey, the more pleasant it
will be. For practitioners, the better prepared they are
for a PR activity, the more productive it will be for the
organization or client.
Cutlip, Center and Broom emphasize that
* Associate Professor, Deptt. of Mass Communication and Journalism, Mangalore University, Mangalagangotri-574199 (Karnataka).
(email ID : sultanawaheeda@yahoo.com)
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methodical systematic research is the foundation of
effective public relations. Without research, public
relations practitioners are restricted to asserting that
they understand the situation and can provide a
solution, while, with research, they can put forward
proposals clearly backed up with evidence to support
them. Research is the ‘scientific alterative to tenacity,
authority and intuition’.
Professor William Baxter of Marquette
University says “most public relations practitioners
consider research as important a tool to them as a
stethoscope is to a doctor. Almost every
communication process or project calls for varying
degrees of research: fact-finding, opinion assessment,
message testing, planning and evaluation.”
Donald K. Wright has pointed out, research is
important because public relations people are finding
that research is part and parcel of their jobs when they
offer communication strategy, counsel on
communication problems, and educate clients as to the
best public relations strategies or actions. Without
research, practitioners are reduced to making, at best,
educated guess regarding the problem and potential
intervention programmes, and thus run a greater risk
of being unable to predict outcomes accurately.
Without research, the practitioner cannot assess where
public relations programme begins, how it evolves, or
what the end product will be. Quite simply, without
research you cannot demonstrate the efficacy of your
programme.
Conducting PR research
A considerable portion of the research on public
relations has been conducted in private, corporate or
agency settings. Most of the industry research is
proprietary in nature, meaning that the findings are
confidential and not typically available to the public.
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There are many reasons for maintaining this
confidentiality including a concern over how other
organizations might use this information. Proprietary
research is also sometimes related for publicity
purposes. Occasionally, corporate research is made
public through academic journals and conferences.
Every PR programme should begin with
research. Most don’t, which is not correct. Because
PR is still misunderstood as an amorphous function to
many. Public relations recommendations must be
grounded in hard data whenever possible. Instinct
intuition and gut feelings all remain important in the
conduct of public relations work, but management
today demands more—measurement, analysis and
evaluation at every stage of the PR process.
In an era of scarce resources, management wants
facts and statistics from public relations professionals
to show that their efforts contribute not only to overall
organizational effectiveness but also to the bottom
line—why should we introduce a new employee
newspaper? What should it say and cost? - Questions
like these must be answered through research.
Today, companies don’t want to spend money
unless it fetches them results. Public Relations
programmes must contribute to meeting business
objectives. That means that research must be applied
to help segment market targets, analyse audience
preferences and dislikes and determine which message
might be most effective with the audiences. Research
then becomes essential in helping realize management
goals.
Why research is necessary?
Early research helps to determine the current
situation, prevalent attitudes, and difficulties that the
programme faces. Later research examines the
programme’s success, along with what else still needs
to be done. Research at both points in the process is
critical.
Research can prevent organizations from
wasting time, effort and money in attacking problems
that don’t really exist. For example, several years ago,
the American Dairy Association was planning a multimillion dollar campaign to tell Americans that milk is
not a major contributor to cholesterol in the diet.
Earlier, survey research by a public relations firm
showed that most Americans do not associate milk with
high cholesterol. Research can save an organization
from costly mistakes simply by ascertaining public
perceptions rather than guessing at them.
Research can provide the facts upon which
public relations programme will be based. A good
example is the way in which the petroleum industry
successfully changed the public perception that oil
companies are owned by a handful of very wealthy
individuals and families. This is stereotype of course.
It began in the days of John D. Rockefeller Sr. Since
there were no industry wide data on ownership, it was
necessary to research the question. It was found that
six of the largest oil companies had more than two
million stockholders and more than 11,750,000 indirect
stockholders. The dissemination of these data did a
great deal to modify the public stereotype about
ownership of oil companies.
Methods of public relations research
Professionals in public relations use different
methods of research such as surveys, focus group
interviews and opinion polls. Survey research is one
of the most frequently used research methods in PR.
Surveys can be applied to broad societal issues, such
as determining public opinion about a political
candidate, or to the most minute organization problems,
such as whether shareholders like the quarterly report.
Surveys most often involve the use of structured
questionnaires and a mix of open and closed ended
questioners. They can also be administered in a variety
of ways. Surveys can be taken over the telephone, by
mail or face to face.
Sampling
Sampling is the second basic issue in survey
research which involves determining the set of
individuals to collect information from. There are two
basic approaches to this problem. They are: drawing
sample and taking a census. In a census, one surveys
everyone in the population. The process is very
expensive and time consuming. But it does have several
advantages, especially when public is fairly small. It
means information collected from all members of the
public which is often important from PR point of view.
For example, employee attitude surveys are generally
based on a census in order to convince each employee
that management is interested in what he or she has to
say.
Sampling involves selecting a subset of the
population and making generalization from that sample
to the broader population. The logic behind survey
sampling is much the same as in taking a blood sample.
One need not drain all the blood from a patient to
determine his or her blood type. The same is true in
survey research. One need not interview all members
of a population to determine the prevailing opinions
on some issue facing the population. The key is to
obtain a truly representative sample.
The sample or selected target group must be
representative of the total public whose views are
sought. There are two approaches used in obtaining a
sample: probability sampling and non-probability
sampling. Probability sampling is what one might
commonly view as the ‘scientific method’, while non-
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probability sample is a more informal approach.
Probability sampling is a technique in which all
members of a population have a ‘known chance of
being selected’. The real power of probability sampling
is that it enables the researcher to make statistical
inferences from the sample to the broader population.
In non-probability sampling, the units of a sample are
chosen so that each unit in the population does not
have a calculable non-zero probability of being selected
in the sample.
Systematic sampling method is somewhat easier
and less expensive. One begins by developing a list of
population rather than selecting each person randomly.
However, one selects only a random starting point in
the list. To illustrate, suppose a researcher desires a
sample of 100 and has a population of 10,000. In a
systematic sample, he merely selects a random starting
point from the first 100 persons and then picks every
100th person thereafter (i.e. 10,000/100=N).
Technically, the systematic sample is not a perfect
probability sampling plan–not everyone has an equal
probability of being selected since inclusion is based
on the random starting point.
A stratified sample is used when the researcher
wants to be sure to include persons from different
segments (i.e. strata) of the population. In public
relations, a researcher might use a stratified sampling
plan if he or she wishes to include from several distinct
publics. This method does require some prior
knowledge of the population. Specifically, the
researcher must know the size and nature of the
population strata to be sampled.
In cluster sampling, a researcher first divides
the population into several large groupings known as
clusters. A cluster is often defined geographically such
as a country, city or election district. From there, the
researcher can use either simple random or systematic
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sampling to select the actual persons to be interviewed.
In public relations, primary purpose of poll data
is to get indications of attitudes and opinions and not
to predict elections. A sample of 250 to 500 will give
relatively accurate data with 5 or 6 per cent variance.
For example, the public relations person asks
employees what they want to read in the company
magazine. Data seveals 60 percent saying they would
like to read more news about opportunities for
promotion. If, only 100 employees are properly
surveyed, it does not matter. If the percentage is 50 or
70 large percentage, in either case it would sufficiently
justify an increase in news stories about advancement
opportunities.
Gallop polls
Gallop polls are surveys of public opinion as
conducted by George Gallup, an American who
developed a quantitative method of polling public
opinion. George Gallup founded the American Institute
of Public Opinion, the precursor of The Gallup
Organization, in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1935. He
wished to objectively determine the opinions held by
the people. The Gallup Poll is the division of Gallup
that regularly conducts public opinion polls in more
than 140 countries around the world. Gallup polls are
often referenced in the mass media as a reliable and
objective measure of public opinion. Gallup Poll
results, analyses, and videos are published daily on
Gallup.com in the form of data-driven news.
Historically, the Gallup Poll has measured and
tracked the public’s attitudes concerning virtually every
political, social, and economic issue of the day,
including highly sensitive or controversial subjects. In
2005, Gallup began its World Poll which continually
surveys citizens in more than 140 countries,
representing 95% of the world’s adult population.
General and regional-specific questions, developed in
collaboration with the world’s leading behavioral
economists, are organized into powerful indexes and
topic areas that correlate with real-world outcomes.
Gallup Polls are best known for their accuracy in
predicting the outcome of United States presidential
elections.
In 2008, Gallup interviewed no fewer than 1,000
US adults each day, providing the most watched daily
tracking poll of the race between John McCain and
Barack Obama. Gallup conducts 1,000 interviews
every day among both landline and cell phones across
the US for its health and well-being survey.
Focus groups
Focus groups are undoubtedly a powerful
research tool which provide a useful complement to
quantitative approaches to get a deep understanding
of the opinions and attitudes of particular publics.
However, they do need to be moderated by trained
researchers.
Focus group interviews are a marketing research
technique that has been successfully adapted to the
needs of public relations practitioners and are not really
the province of the ‘gifted amateur’. It is a relatively
unstructured surveying technique in which a moderator
asks 8-12 people questions about a certain topic such
as an organization’s image or its products. The subjects
are allowed to answer in whatever form they wish,
while the moderator’s job is to keep the ‘focus’ of the
discussion on the topic at hand. Focus groups are useful
in generating ideas and are especially useful during
the early stages of campaign planning. The results are
often used to help formulate more specific research
hypothesis for subsequent testing. The focus groups
should be representative of the audience that the
organization wants to reach.
adapted to the needs of public relations practitioners.
They do not yield the strictly quantitative data that can
be gotten from a survey. But they do have the advantage
of being open-ended and permitting members of target
groups to speak in their own terms of understanding,
provide their own emphasis, and respond to the views
expressed by other members of the same group.
The key features of a focus group, suggested by
Daymon and Holloway are: they provide evidence from
many voices on the same topic; they are interactive;
they provide a supportive forum for expressing
suppressed views and they allow you to collect a large
amount of data fairly quickly.
Typically, focus group can be used to examine
issues like understanding behaviours and attitudes;
exploring strategic policies and issues; developing and
understanding brands, products and services; and
exploring organizational and industry issues.
Employee attitude surveys
Positive employee perceptions of work
environment are critical to a productive organization.
Numerous research studies have shown that satisfied
employees not only stay at their jobs longer, they also
lead to happier, more loyal customers. In recent years,
surveys of employee attitudes toward work content,
structure, process, and environment have been used
successfully to restructure the workplace and to
improve both productivity and employee satisfaction.
Employee attitude surveys are inexpensive tools
that can give a superb insight into employee motivation,
performance and overall satisfaction. One short-term
benefit of employee attitude surveys is that they show
the employees that you care about their opinions. Longterm benefits can include improved morale, increased
customer retention and more profits.
Focus group interviews have been successfully
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Some of the main factors that affect employee
satisfaction are : Job security; Communication between
employees & management ; Lack of training;
Compensation; Job burnout; Ill-defined tasks; Poor
working conditions; Lack of support; Lack of
advancement opportunities ; Feeling unappreciated etc.
Once you understand how your employees think
and feel, you can begin to revise policies and
procedures to better meet their needs. You’ll greatly
improve employee retention and motivate your
employees to produce higher quality work.
REFERENCES
l
Cutlip M.Scott, Center H. Allen and Broom M.
Glen, (1994) Effective Public Relations, Prentice
hall, New Jersey
l
David Michelson (2010) Setting Best Practices
in Public Relations Research, Institute for Public
Relations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The_Gallup_Organization
l
Leland G. Verheyen. (1988) How to develop an
employee attitude survey, Training &
Development Journal, August 01
l
Pavlik V John (1987) Public relations–What
research tells us, Sage Publications, Public
Relations, (2008) New World Encyclopedia
l
Seitel P. Fraser (1997) The Practice of Public
Relations, Prentice Hall p. 99-120
l
Stacks W Don, (2002) Primer of Public
Relations Research, The Guilford Press, USA
l
Wilcox L. Dennis, Ault H. Phillip and Agee K.
Warren ( 1986) Public Relations Strategies and
Tactics, Harper and Row, Publishers, New York.
p. 129
Conclusion
Research in PR has become necessary in today’s
complex society. Instinct intuition and gut feelings all
remain important in the conduct of public relations
work, but management today demands more –
measurement, analysis, and evaluation at every stage
of the PR process. It is necessary for the PR practitioner
to understand the attitudes, hopes, fears, concerns,
frustrations of various relevant publics. Hence, all
Public Relations practitioners need to be educated on
research methods survey, focus group interviews and
opinion polls to further enrich their practice.
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Thrust areas of research in
computer science
C.P. Agrawal*
P. Sasikala**
ABSTRACT
The rapid expansion of Computer Research has led to several surveys with potential to start
further research. Research in Computer Science needs to take into account different aspects from
various disciplines. In this paper, we explore the topics that are more closely associated with
Computer Science. The main focus is to motivate and start shaping the execution of research
activities in a university. The specific dominating research areas of this decade are also discussed.
This article brings out the thrust research areas in Computer Science and provides suggestions for
accessing the key resources.
Introduction
Computers, computing and communication have
become a large part of our daily lives and have proven
to make society a better place to live. It is making
human life more and more divine and uplifted every
moment. Every 7 minute, there is a new IT milestone
developed. Hence, research opportunities in the most
cutting edge areas of computers, computing and
communication would be most acceptable. Research
also gives way for collaboration between universities,
industries and the government. The quality of research
depends on finding the right things, the right way, at
the right place and time.
Recently, the National Knowledge Commission,
in its Report 2009, strongly recommended to, “Create
greater awareness and acceptance towards pursuing
teaching and research as a career, by communicating
the opportunities and excitement at a broader level”
[1]. Further, “Expose undergraduate and postgraduate
students to cutting edge research and engage them in
serious research wherever possible”.
Makhanlal Chaturvedi University is dedicated
to expanding knowledge and technology to advance
the understanding of computer science and applications
for the betterment of humanity. The commitment of
this university to the discovery of new ideas and
projects intended to solve problems and enhance
quality of life has contributed to the progression of
computer science. Other disciplines have benefited
from the astounding discoveries resulting from the
ground–breaking research performed in computer
science.
This article aims in giving exposure and initiate
the quest for research in Computer Science as given in
Section I. In Section II, IT research initiatives and
facilities available in this University (www.mcu.ac.in)
have been highlighted. Section III highlights the key
research resources easily available. Since most of us
are at a loss for topics to propose, the topics survey
given can possibly give an idea. Almost all of the
resources mentioned here are inter-related topics in
computer science research.
* Professor & Head, Computer Science and Rector, MC University. (email ID : agrawalcp@yahoo.com)
** Asst. Prof., Computer Science, MC University. (email ID : mculect.sasikala@gmail.com)
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1. Expansive IT research areas at a glance
1.1 Algorithms include research on a range of
areas related to computational complexity and the
design, analysis, and applications of algorithms.
Operations Research, Computational Geometry, Graph
Theory, Computer Graphics, Networking, Geographic
Information Systems (GIS), Robotics are few areas of
applications of algorithms.
1.2 Artificial Intelligence and Natural
Language Processing is a broad area covering
Intelligent systems, Pattern recognition, Computer
vision, Machine learning, Neural networks, Image
processing, etc. Natural language understanding,
Machine translation, Semantics extraction, Document
understanding, Cross lingual information retrieval,
Intelligent interfaces are the other areas of this domain.
1.3 Computer Graphics links Computer Vision
and Image Understanding, Computer-aided graphics
design, Multimedia, Visualization, Rendering,
Animation, Image Analysis and Biometrics, Image and
video retrieval.
1.4 Computer Networks vary from Broadband
networks to Network Algorithms, Performance
modeling, wired and wireless networks, network
security protocols, Sensor Networks, Content
Distribution Networks. Architectures and protocols for
Metro Optical Networks, High Performance
computing, Quality-of-service protocols, Mobile
Computing, Voice Routing, Voice over IP, Enterprise
networks etc.
1.5 Data Mining comprises Data integration
models and algorithms, Graphical models, Information
extraction and retrieval, Forecasting and smart ebusiness, Sensor and Bio-informatics data mining, Text
and Web data mining. Integrating mining with
relational DBMS, Integrating mining with OLAP, Data
Mining and Analytics, Temporal and Spatial mining.
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1.6 Database and Information Systems
include Object oriented, temporal and parallel
databases, Query optimization and transaction
management. Real-time database systems, indexing
multidimensional data, Wide area distributed database
systems, data dissemination systems, data warehousing
and application security.
1.7 Distributed Systems involve Distributed
object-based systems, Programming models and
Runtimes for generic agents, Parallel Computing, High
performance cluster computing, Distributed operating
systems, Performance evaluation, fault tolerance and
scalability issues in distributed systems.
1.8 Formal Methods & Theory comprises
Formal specification, design and verification of
hardware and software systems, Logic, Automata
theory and their applications in reasoning about
systems. Other areas are Automated theorem proving,
Model checking, Reachability analysis of large and
infinite state spaces and techniques, Algebra modeling
and verification of distributed systems, Complexity
theory, etc.
1.9 Information Management and Data
Analytics includes Data Management for emerging
applications, Data privacy and access control , Data
management through Grid computing, Utility
computing, Virtualization, Cloud computing,
Knowledge management in software engineering,
Business intelligence, etc.
1.10 Programming languages and Compilers
cover Analysis and implementation of functional and
logic programming languages, Analysis and synthesis
of Compilers, Optimizing and parallelizing compilers,
Implementation of compilers and so on.
1.11 Real-Time and Embedded Systems
contain Functional Programming applications,
Reconfigurable computing, Automobile Telematics,
Embedded control units, Design and development of
robots, sensor platforms, etc.
1.12 Scalable Software Engineering includes
Object oriented software development, Component
architectures, Re-engineering of software, Systems
analysis and design, MIS systems, Project
management, Testing and Quality assurance.
1.13 Speech and Vision involves A speech
translation system from one language to another, A
system for secure access to information using speech
mode, Biometrics involving speech, image, text and
audio-visual information , Content-based information
storage and retrieval, Development of phonetic engine
and so on.
2. Research Outlook in the University
Teaching Department
At Makhanlal Chaturvedi University (MCU),
research is well geared up to take a quantum leap. The
systems based research in the following areas will lead
to innovative prototypes that may help in implementing
systems that are directly applicable for society.
2.1 Mobile Networking and Communications
Mobile networking research, focus on designing,
analyzing and implementing software systems to
control communication networks with the goal of
building future communication networks that can
efficiently support voice, data and multimedia
applications. Mobile network objective is to evolve
cellular access networks into more secure, all-IP mobile
networks and to enhance the networking infrastructure
and protocols of Internet. High speed mobile data
networking focuses on creating the next generation
wireless network architectures, mobility management,
and security in wireless networks, and services that
will run over these networks. The research areas
involve network subscriber databases, MobileIP, and
wireless/wireline convergence. This area of work also
encompasses research into designing scalable
architectures for enabling novel services for wireless
service providers and in building hardware/software
components.
Another success area is Mobile Web, which is
driven by the combination of novel Web-based services
with the diffusion of advanced mobile devices that
require personalization, location awareness and content
adaptation. The recent advances in wireless access
technologies as well as the increasing number of mobile
applications have made Wireless Internet a reality. A
wide variety of bandwidth demanding services
including high speed data delivery and multimedia
communication have been materialized through the
convergence of the next generation Internet and
heterogeneous wireless networks. However, providing
even higher bandwidth and richer applications
necessitates a fundamental understanding of wireless
Internet architecture and the interactions between
heterogeneous users. Consequently, fundamental
advances in many concepts of the wireless Internet are
required for the ultimate goal of communication
anytime anywhere [2].
The key resources for Mobile Networks and
Applications are found in MOBIDATA, An Interactive
journal of mobile computing [3]. The journal Mobile
Networks and Applications reflects the emerging
symbiosis of portable computers and wireless
networks, addressing the convergence of mobility,
computing and information organization, access and
management. In its special issues, the journal places
an equal emphasis on various areas of nomadic
computing, data management, related software and
hardware technologies and mobile user services.
2.2 Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining
Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD)
is an interdisciplinary area which deals with extracting
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knowledge from data. The need for KDD
methodologies arises due to rapid growth of online data
and the large databases used to hold it. The challenge
of extracting knowledge from data draws upon research
in statistics, databases, pattern recognition, machine
learning, data visualization, optimization, and highperformance computing, to deliver advanced business
intelligence and web discovery solutions. Key
advances in robust and scalable data mining, methods
for fast pattern detection from very large databases,
text and web mining, and innovative business
intelligence applications have come from this research
area [4].
Current advances in different types of web
mining are in the categories of web content mining,
web usage mining, and web structure mining. For each
research work, the key issues to be examined are web
mining process, methods/techniques, applications, data
sources, and software to be used. The web mining
process includes resource finding and retrieving,
information selection and preprocessing, patterns
analysis and recognition, validation and interpretation,
and visualization.
Data Mining community’s top resource is
available at kdnuggets.com [5]. The leading source of
information on Data Mining, Web Mining, Knowledge
Discovery, and Decision Support topics available here
has been widely recognized as the leading resource
pool. For example, Data Mining Software like Weka
has a collection of machine learning algorithms for
data mining tasks. The algorithms can either be applied
directly to a dataset or called from your own Java code.
Weka contains tools for data pre-processing,
classification, regression, clustering, association rules,
and visualization. It is also well suited for developing
new machine learning schemes. More information on
open resources can be explored at kdnuggets.com [5].
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2.3 Data Warehousing
The functioning of an organization depends on
intelligent decision–making that relies on available
correct information. Data Warehousing is a technology
that allows information to be easily and efficiently
accessed for decision-making activities by collecting
data from many operational, legacy and possibly
heterogeneous data sources. On-Line Analytical
Processing (OLAP) tools are well suited for complex
data analysis, such as multi-dimensional data analysis,
and to assist in decision support activities while data
mining tools take the process one step further and
actively search the data for patterns and hidden
knowledge in the data stored in the warehouse. Many
organizations are building, or are planning to develop,
a data warehouse for their operational and decision
support needs. Key advances in data warehouse
modeling, view selection and maintenance, indexing
schemes, parallel query processing and data mining
issues come from this research area [6]. The other main
research issues include latest technologies Linking
Structured Databases to the Unstructured Data
Environment, Architecting the Enterprise to Optimize
Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing; Metadata
Environment for Transformation, Impact of
Globalization in Driving Integration of International
Data and/or Multi-Lingual Requirements.
Top resources are available in Data
Warehousing.com which is dedicated to “documenting
all data warehousing related information on the
Internet”[7]. It hosts data warehouse specific list
servers and newsgroups. DataWarehouse.com bills
itself as “the data warehouse community” [8]. These
sites offer discussion forums, live chats, e-seminars,
articles, trade show information, and more. They
include links to software companies and consultants,
a directory of relevant sites, and a list of papers and
articles submitted to the site by the data warehousing
community.
2.4 Natural Language Processing
Natural Language Processing has a strong scope
due to Multilingual Information Access, particularly
in India. Multilingual Information Access is critical
for the acquisition, dissemination, exchange, and
understanding of knowledge in the global information
society. Multilingual Information Access is Cross
Language Information Retrieval, Multilingual
Information Extraction, and Machine Translation that
bridge the gap between available information and the
user needs transparently across languages. The
Multilingual Systems deal with software technologies
related to content-creation, storage, search, access, and
interaction with multiple languages.
Cross language Information Retrieval [9] and
Multilingual Information Extraction includes query
expansion, domain adaptation, automatic alignment of
multilingual corpora, multilingual named entity
extraction, machine transliteration, automated and
collaborative creation of parallel corpora for Machine
Translation and fundamental properties of languages
and language phenomena including language
acquisition and evolution, structural properties of
corpora in the framework of complex networks, and
interaction between syntax and prosody. Apart from
this, robust fundamentals include annotation standards,
data collection efforts and basic tools for research in
Indian languages. Parts-of-Speech (POS) tagging is
an important process for most Natural Language
Processing (NLP) tasks [10]. POS annotations capture
the morphosyntactic features of the words from the
given context in a text and hence can provide useful
information for subsequent stages of processing such
as chunking, named entity detection, and parsing.
The fundamental building blocks for NLP
research are lacking in areas like workable POS tagset
and tagger for most Indian Languages (IL). Existing
IL POS tagsets are targeted for a specific language,
hence scope for lot of research is existing in this area.
Linguists, Computational Linguists, and Computer
Scientists from MSRI, AU-KBC, Delhi University, IIT
Bombay, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Tamil
University had contributed to this collaborative effort.
So far, POS-tagged data is available in two Indian
languages, namely Hindi and Bangla for the research
community.
Language Technology World is the most
comprehensive WWW information service and
knowledge source on the wide range of technologies
that deal with human language. The Association for
Computational Linguistics (ACL NLP/CL Universe)
language is a resource pool for language related
technologies [11]. Information portal and journal for
the translation and localization industries is an
important resource for Multilingual Computing [12].
2.5 Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing is a broad area spurred by
several important technological trends. It is the concept
of renting computing power that has taken the
technology world by storm. Cloud Computing has
attracted a great deal of attention both from the research
community and from industry. The Cloud Computing
paradigm has evolved over the years from a basic IT
infrastructure (data centers) to platform as a service
(PaaS), and then from software as a service (SaaS) to
complete service enablement on a hosted infrastructure
(IaaS). At the same time, virtualization has emerged
as a key enabler for the cloud computing paradigm.
Several challenges arise in the design, implementation,
and deployment of virtualized clouds. These challenges
include automated service provisioning, service
monitoring and management, resource elasticity, cloud
programming models, economic models, charging and
accounting, and, finally, virtualization-specific issues
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such as image management and virtual appliance-based
service creation. The broad range of topics that address
fundamental issues in the enablement of applications,
services, and infrastructures in a large-scale, virtualized
cloud platform includes deployment, monitoring, and
management to address the issues of scale, reliability,
root-cause analysis, dynamic resource planning,
security and privacy, and new applications [13].
Internet. Elsevier Science offer access to full text of
2423 journals published by them, out of which 133
are Computer Science Journals [15]. International
Digital Electronic Access Library permits to use 175
Academic Press Journals. Network based resources
like mailing software, CiteSeer, ACM, DBLP,
Reference Linking, Pre Print service and Consortiums
are other important means of access to research articles.
India is among the top six countries in terms of
talent and market potential. As per the industry
forecasts, India will not only see a surge in cloud
computing services but companies all over the world
will look to India to support their transition to cloud
computing. Therefore, companies are sparing no efforts
in making its cloud computing push a success in India,
a market that is “developing very nicely where piracy
is reducing and intellectual property protection is better
than in China. “We are successful at exporting IT
services and talent. But when it comes to using
technology domestically, we are quite poor,’’ said
Microsoft India Chairman. Academic institutions
should explore the domestic applications of these
technologies and act as a Platform to transform it to
the society.
Apart from these, IEEE Computer Society is the
world’s premier organization of computing
professionals, with rich offerings in publications,
standards, certifications, conferences, and many more
[16]. Computer Society Digital Library covers all areas
of computing and is the best source for coverage of
new and emerging technologies. Seminal papers,
News, Software, Solutions and Publications are also
available for researchers. In free Webinar, experts
explore hot technologies and distinguish between best
practices and discuss the strategies that most
significantly affect both process and product quality
Cloud Computing is one of the most promising
areas of research for the next decade. One of the best
portals for Cloud Computing is found in
cloudcomputing.qrimp.com [14]. It is one of the central
source of information on cloud computing. The model
is to get user-generated content from the community,
as it is an emerging area. Cloud computing can
transform how research is conducted, allowing
scientists around the world to explore and share rich,
diverse multidisciplinary data sets with their own
familiar desktop tools.
3. Key Computing Research Resources
Electronic Journals are widely available over
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Conclusion
Scientific research is the key to sustaining
India’s growth, and it is critical for India to ensure
that research remains an attractive profession for the
nation’s finest minds. This paper lists a top-level index
of topics describing current research in computer
science. The paper contains resources that span most
of the areas of computer science. It has a collection of
pointers to specialized resources for individual subareas. It is intended to improve communication
between different sub-fields and gives way for
collaboration between universities, industries and the
government. Creating role models and thereby
encouraging the youth to pursue careers in scientific
research should be the nation’s focus. The MCU’s
overall research goal is: “To produce and communicate
new knowledge and to apply innovative applications
of existing knowledge which make a significant impact
at national/international level and improve the
prosperity of the people and communities of this
region.’’ We believe that these research fields
discussed will pave way for close interaction between
researchers and industry practitioners so that the
research can inform current deployments and
deployment challenges can inform new research
directions. Whatever be the area of research chosen
by an individual, the goal is still the same – to improve
the quality of life as quality is the key link to success.
[5]
http://www.kdnuggets.com/
[6]
http://www.1keydata.com/
[7]
http://www.datawarehousing.com/
[8]
http://www.datawarehouse.com/
[9]
Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Berthier Ribeiro-Neto,
Modern Information Retrieval (ACM Press
Books), 2008
[10]
Nitin Indurkhya and Fred J. Damerau,
Handbook of Natural Language Processing,
Second Edition (Chapman & Hall/Crc: Machine
Learning & Pattern Recognition), 2010
[11]
www.aclweb.org/
[12]
http://www.multilingual.com/
[13]
George Reese, Cloud Application Architectures:
Building Applications and Infrastructure in the
Cloud (Theory in Practice (O’Reilly)), 2009
[14]
www.cloudcomputing.qrimp.com
[15]
http://www.elsevier.com
[16]
http://www.computer.org
REFERENCES
[1]
http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/
[2]
Samuel Pierre, Michel Barbeau, and Evangelos
Kranakis, Ad-Hoc, Mobile and Wireless
Networks, 2003
[3]
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu /
[4]
Berthold, M.R., Borgelt, C., Höppner, F.,
Klawonn, F., Guide to Intelligent Data Analysis,
“How to Intelligently Make Sense of Real Data
Series: Texts in Computer Science”, Vol. 42,
2010
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