Election Polling Forecasts and Public Images of Social Science. A Case Study in the Shaping of Opinion Among a Strategic Public

1 January 1949

journal article
Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Public Opinion Quarterly

Vol. 13 (2) , 185-222
https://doi.org/10.1086/266067

Abstract

NEWSPAPERMEN have at once been among the chief consumers and severest critics of opinion polls. The following study, based on expressions by 107 editors and publishers, examines the impact which the failure of the 1948 election forecasts had on the attitudes toward polling held by this group of opinion leaders. Its also explores the degree to which changed attitudes toward polls may be reflected in opinions regarding the specific field of market research and the broad area of social science. Dr. Merton is Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Assosciate Director of the Bureau of Applied Social Research. Dr. Hatt is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and Research Associate in the Office of Population Research.

Keywords

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