The blogosphere: voters or villains?
Which position U.S. political candidates take on this question may correlate largely with which political party they represent, according to an article in The Times (”Are Republicans internet Luddites?” blog by Tom Baldwin, Washington correspondent, The Times, Nov 28, 2007). Republican politicians are considered “inept” in their use of the Internet, according to the article, in contrast to their Democratic counterparts who are utilizing it more.
In illustration of the difference, the article cites the number of Facebook and MySpace friends of various candidates — leading Democratic candidate Obama, for example, has 360,000 buddies on these two sites, whereas Republican candidate Giuliani has only 20,000.
A possible reason for the partisan divide? Though acknowledging that it is a” generalization,” Baldwin says that Republican “activists are more likely to regard the web as a purveyor of porn and terror or, at best, a business tool.”
Do elections drive the polls, or do the polls drive the elections?
The polling industry is renown for being secretive about its methods, typically publishing only selected results from its surveys. For years, many people have voiced suspicions about the credibility of political polling - are those who do the polls truly non-partisan, are the questionnaires administered in a competent manner, who exactly is being polled, for example.
Now the skeptics have a champion, and it’s coming from the blogosphere. A group of political news organizations are turning the tables and launching an online project to scrutinize the polls themselves. Led by HuffingtonPost.com, the news groups are asking their respective website visitors to participate in a survey forum about their experiences with being polled.
Some of the survey questions include: who called them, when, did they agree to participate, were the questions worded fairly or slanted toward a desired response? You can see the complete online poll form with all the questions here.
