[eccr] Reliability of web polls questioned

Reliability of web polls questioned
-----------------------------------
Internet opinion polls, now widely used by the media, risk producing
flawed results no matter how much "weighting" of the data takes place to
make them more representative, according to new research on polling
techniques. The study, commissioned by British newspaper The Guardian,
compared internet polling with more traditional telephone polling
methods. Critics of online polling argue that because only half the
population has access to the internet, the samples, and therefore the
results, cannot be representative of the population as a whole. "It
appears highly likely that internet panellists are more politically
interested and knowledgeable, and may perhaps be more inclined to take a
leftwing stance on some issues, too," the study reported.

Source: http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,871070,00.html -
MediaGuardian.co.uk

----------------
ECCR-Mailing list
---
To unsubscribe, send an email message to (majordomo /at/ listserv.vub.ac.be)
with in the body of the message (NOT in the subject): unsubscribe eccr
---
ECCR - European Consortium for Communications Research
Secretariat: P.O. Box 106, B-1210 Brussels 21, Belgium
Tel.: +32-2-412 42 78/47
Fax.: +32-2-412 42 00
Email: (freenet002 /at/ pi.be) or (Rico.Lie /at/ pi.be)
URL: http://www.eccr.info
----------------