THE EDITOR, Madam:
IT SEEMS to me that in recent times we are being inundated with casual public opinion polls in the media. Both the print and electronic media have been channels of this fad. The Gleaner, for example, carried the results of no less than four such polls on the July 31, with subjects ranging from Government policy, (the Lift Up Programme via Internet and carrying of knives in public) to what parents can do to stop children sneaking out and the Pill and sexual promiscuity.
The TV news also asks us every night to call in to their polls and the results are given subsequently.
This leads me to ask what is the purpose of these polls. Are we supposed to take these results seriously or disregard them as just comic relief?
My view is that these polls are inaccurate and are usually a waste of time and there is the great danger that they may be taken seriously and may even result in influencing government policy.
By way of illustration I will use one of these polls to highlight my point. This one was published April 14 in The Star. The question asked was: "If your husband wasn't able to get you pregnant, would you allow another man to do so?" Or in Jamaican parlance "would you give your man a jacket" (my translation).
The result of this poll showed that 87.5 per cent of the women interviewed would not even think of doing such a thing.
Can this be extrapolated to the rest of the Jamaican population? Probably, but we would be foolish to depend on the results of this study because only eight women were interviewed and the sole woman who said she would do it refused to give her name or be photographed as she claimed that her boyfriend would beat her up!
The study illustrates two of the main faults of these polls. Firstly, the sample size of most of these polls is two small and the answers are unlikely to be truthful if you publish people's names and photos when asking such personal information.
If the media are serious about opinion polls they should do them properly or not at all.
I am etc.,
HORACE FLETCHER
E-mail:
hfletchr@cwjamaica.com
Box 77 Kingston 7
Via Go-Jamaica
