George Gallup and the rhetoric of scientific democracy

Polling as Ritual

“…Certainly, as Hogan (1997) noted, the claims to science and scientific authority are part of the legitimating power of polling. For, as part of the apparatus of the ritual specialist, the invocation of scientific procedure and authority is an essential part of what makes polling a ritual form.…”

“…Hogan (1997) has observed that polls have not only become increasingly less reliable, but they have "become 'news events' in and of themselves. As a result, they substitute for substantive information about political issues and stifle debate" (p. 177).…”

“…Other scholars, such as Bourdieu (1979) and Converse (1964), have denied that it is even possible for polls to do so because citizens do not possess opinions in the sense of "formulated discourse with a pretension to coherence" (Bourdieu, 1979, p. 130). Other scholars, such as Harrison (1995) and Hogan (1997), have questioned whether polls scientifically elicit information from respondents. Lisbeth Lipari (PhD, Stanford University, 1996) is assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Denison University.…”

A Critique of Internet Polls as Symbolic Representation and Pseudo-Events

“…The history of the poll has been traced by political scientists and communication scholars (cf., Herbst, 1990Herbst, , 1998Hogan, 1997;Korzi, 2000;Rubenstein, 1995). For the purposes of this article, however, we trace polling from its original intent as a tool for informing public policy to its current application as a news and entertainment tool.…”

“…2 To date, little attention has been given to Internet polls as content for news stories. Hogan (1997) argues that polls, instead of guiding policy makers, have become news events in themselves. Hogan claims that ''journalistic imperatives'' now have journalists demanding more quirky polls about entertainment topics.…”