Notes from the Marginals

By Karen Donelan

In 1947, a dedicated group of public opinion pioneers founded the American Association for Public Opinion Research to respond to a need for "a meeting place" for discussing issues of common interest and concern. The venture, by any measure, was successful: Association meetings have become a treasured place to gather and reflect and debate about the methods and substance of public opinion research.

Occasionally in these conversations, at our annual and chapter meetings, and in our day-to-day lives of working in this field, we in the polling community touch upon issues that strike a chord across disciplines and boundaries of commercial and academic interest. These are the topics that "fill the room" at meetings and the mailbox on computers and spill over into blogs and the popular media. Definitions of likely voters, the relationship between polling and politics, sampling methods in war-torn or storm-ravaged nations, response rates, the use of polls by media, internet surveys and representative samples, do-not-call registries, ethics and standards… all are topics that challenge the minds and hearts of researchers and fuel long exchanges both in person and at the keyboard.

These conversations were provided an additional venue in 1994 when AAPORnet, an online listserv for members, was initiated by Jim Beninger of the University of Southern California. AAPORnet has become an ongoing forum for communication among public opinion analysts and experts from academia and commercial sectors of the field. While private to members, this kind of forum allows followers the thrill of hearing from those who invented our field, and who continue to blaze new trails in the method and substance of polls and surveys in the United States and abroad. This virtual "meeting place" is almost better than the in-person version, because many people hear the conversations simultaneously and can respond, clarify, or add additional data to the threads of conversation.

"Notes from the Marginals" is Public Opinion Pros's answer to the question of how we might extend the collective wisdom of the exchanges on AAPORnet for the benefit of a broader audience. It is an invitation to all of you who love controversy and synthesis and who spend your lives trying to make the many facets of public opinion research clear to any of several audiences—media, students, family and friends—to help extend that wisdom. It is also intended for those audiences, who frequently raise "simple" questions about polling and surveys and then find an expert struggling to explain the complexities of the issues.

Each column will take up a topic that has sparked interest or controversy among the polling professionals conversing on AAPORnet. With writers' permission (and consistent with AAPOR's policy statement and recent discussion regarding the quotation of material on AAPORnet), we will summarize the most thought-provoking exchanges, try to assess the essential elements of the controversy, and provide commentary or perspective on its practical meaning for those of us who work in the field and those of you who try to figure out what we are doing.

We would also like some of these writers to come forward on occasion to do the assessing and commenting for us. Often, as we try to understand data, we seek the input of colleagues and capture information that could prove very useful to others. Occasionally on AAPORnet these issues come back in well-written summaries—but often we are left wondering how the threads of conversation were synthesized or used elsewhere.

If you have written a paper or given a lecture or reported on results in the press based on your AAPORnet threads, we'd love to hear it. If you have searched the AAPORnet Digest or elsewhere to gather expert opinion on an issue and want to summarize what you have learned in up to 800 words you might not be able to publish anywhere else, this column is for you. Or if you want to pose a question that you have always wondered about as you were working in or about this field and reflect on its unresolved significance, welcome.

We bring varied backgrounds and perspectives to the field of public opinion research. That has long been the strength of AAPOR and the broader community of survey and polling researchers and practitioners. Sometimes we don't have time to publish long original manuscripts, but we do have wisdom and experience to share. This is the place to do it.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Karen Donelan, Sc.D., is senior scientist in health policy at Massachusetts General Hospital and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. All material quoted from AAPORnet that appears in her column is used by permission of the writers who posted to the listserv. Please send column submissions, proposals, and questions for "Notes From the Marginals" to Donelan@PublicOpinionPros.com.