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© 1997 World Association for Public Opinion Research
OPINION QUALITY IN PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH
Vincent Price is chair of the Department of Communication Studies and faculty associate at the Center for Political Studies in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Public Opinion (Sage Publications, 1992) and other articles and essays on mass communication, public opinion, and persuasion.
Peter Neijens is associate professor at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research (University of Amsterdam). He is also director of the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Commercial Communication and deputy director ofthe Dutch Press Foundation. Both foundations are affiliated with the Department of Communication at the University of Amsterdam.
Correspondence should be addressed to Vincent Price, Department of Communication Studies and Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 2020 Frieze Building, 105 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106; E-mail: vince.price{at}umich.edu and Peter Neijens, Department of Communication and the Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam, Oude Hoogstraat 24, 1012 CE Amsterdam, The Netherlands; E-mail: neijens{at}pscw.uva.nl
Abstract
In recent years, a number of new techniques have been developed—including deliberative polls and educational surveys—that attempt to gather measures of public opinion that is of higher quality (i.e. better informed or more deliberative) than that recorded in typical mass opinion surveys. This paper addresses several general sets of questions. What is meant by ‘quality’ in public opinion? What criteria can be enumerated by which the quality of public opinion can be assessed? In grappling with these questions, the paper argues that conceptions of quality in public opinion are inextricably bound to broader conceptions of quality in democratic decision making, a complex process involving multiple phases and collective participants. In addition, a number of important contradictions and ambiguities underlie conceptions of quality in public opinion.
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