"And the majority says..."

The Polling of America

by Nikhil Naidu

10 December 2001

 

How many times have you heard the words, "According to a poll done by..." or "Exit polls on this election evening show that..." or "After a random survey of more than..."? The chances are that you have either heard or read these types of sentences at least once in the past week. Polls are in and they are in with a vengeance. There are many words that are used to describe polls: accurate, concise, thoughtful, useless. The list goes on but the one thing that is truly amazing about the poll is the level to which it has permeated American society. Take, for example, the previous presidential election. This election showed us the limitations of polls but, more importantly, it showed us the level to which the American media was dependent on polls. "Exit polls show that Gore is winning!" "But wait! Polls of people who had yet to vote show that Bush has strong support." Whatever! In the end, it turned out that polls counted for very little. The fate of this nation's presidency rested on little circular pieces of paper. Dimpled chads, pregnant chads, three-cornered chads; these were the things that decided our election. But people continued to believe in polls. And why not? As far as anyone was concerned, the polls were correct in doing whatever it was they set out to do. They found out whom people were going to vote for, whom they had voted for, or whether they were planning to vote at all. The "hoopla" that the polls generated was enough to keep the American public awake well into the night. And the best part, as most people saw it, was this: polls allowed you to find out what people were thinking. And you could do it in a way that didn't affect the outcome of the election. Apart from there use by the national media during election time, polls are finding a wider audience in many fields of American life. Increasingly, many people find the practice of polling a perfectly acceptable procedure for finding out the wants of the public. ANNOTATION

"...Some novelists are adopting the literary equivalent of the applause-o-meter as well. The best-selling author Andrew Greeley has used focus groups to shape his marketing campaigns, and the novelist James Patterson has conscripted groups of test readers to analyze his books before publication" (Kakutani 610). The two-aforementioned authors used surveys, or similar methods, to come up with the "winning formula" of book-writing, and who can say that they were wrong to do so? Though the critics complain that the books that these authors write are predictable and all written in the style, in reality, ordinary people prefer reading books written in the same style rather than those written with artistic value in mind. The fact that Greeley and Patterson are best-selling authors proves that point. Take Tom Clancy and Stephen King, two authors that you are probably familiar with. Clancy has written over the last 17 years a series of novels starring the fictional historian, spy, and politician Jack Ryan, starting with Patriot Games. Stephen King is noted for his horror/suspense books, most notably Pet Semetary, It, and The Stand. Both of these authors have achieved enormous success through use of familiar characters, situations, or writing styles. For example, Clancy's fast-paced, action-packed books have been the base for the three fast-paced, action-packed movies and 4 fast-paced, action-packed computer games, all of which were huge money-makers. Similarly, Stephen King has had his books (often filled with suspense, horror, and numerous deaths) used as the base for some truly scary motion pictures, miniseries, or straight-to-video movies. This can only mean that the public likes books with a distinctive yet familiar touch.

From the world of advertising, consumer research has already spread to Washington, where President Clinton has rarely made a move without consulting his pollsters, and to Hollywood, where test audiences can affect the content, pacing and tone of big-budget pictures and determine which TV pilots get scheduled. From Hollywood it is now spreading into music theaters, novels and journalism. (Kakutani 610)

As Kakutani describes it, polling is not only acceptable to most Americans, it is also necessary. How would President Clinton have been able to make changes in policy without knowing what the American public wanted? He was, after all, the President of the United States, and was democratically elected to that position in good faith by the American public. Americans believed that as their President, Clinton should implement the changes that they wished for as soon as possible. His extremely difficult job was not only to ensure that the country was run in accordance with the wishes of its citizens and that its policies were carried out with minimum interference, but most importantly that the country be run efficiently. To do these things, he needed to know the public's opinion and polling was the tool that enabled him to know. ANNOTATION

"The result [of polling] is a ...culture wide embrace of that old advertising slogan, 'The customer is always right'--even if that customer has no expertise, no knowledge and no taste" (Kakutani 610). This particular statement by Kakutani shows one potential danger of polls. Even though polls allow for accurate gauging of the public's tastes, they also do not take into account that the people who take the polls might not be informed enough on the issues. For example, people who always vote for one political party because their parents and family all vote for that party, is an inherent weakness in the polling system, and here I speak from personal experience. Oftentimes, when I log onto the internet, I use Netscape Navigator. Now, on the Netscape homepage, there is often a poll of some sort. This poll usually has 2-3 choices, and is related to some current news story. Sometimes I know enough about the poll's subject that I can answer the quiz truthfully, but sometimes I don't. "Whose position on campaign finance reform do you support the most? A)McCain; B)Gore; C)Bush." This was a poll that I remember encountering just before McCain dropped out of the the presidential race last October. My initial thought was "Huh?!?" I had no clue which choice to pick, and so I did what many people do. I clicked a choice at random, and I was taken to a page which showed me the results of the poll. By clicking one of the choices, I had, effectively, cheated. I had chosen one of the choices, despite my total lack of knowledge on the topic. While this example may seem petty and not at all important, let us consider the larger picture for a minute. Presumably, I was not the only person that day who saw the poll and did not know what my opinion was on the issue of campaign finance reform. Now, out of all the people in my position, it is safe to assume that a percentage of them also voted just to see the results. Considering that each of the polls on the Netscape homepage garner thousands of votes, the consequences of these "mis-votes" are huge. Hundreds of people, if not thousands, of people are voting for no other reason than to see the results and in doing so, are likely to be tampering with the polls' results on a huge scale. While an increasing number of people find the practice of polling perfectly acceptable, it must take into account the level of information available to the public to be truly effective. ANNOTATION

"[James] Patterson recently changed the ending of his new thriller, Cat & Mouse, in response to reader feedback; the novel reached No.2 on the Times best-seller list. This shameless second-guessing is not simply a money grubbing attempt to give audiences what they...want. It also represents the abdication by creative types of their artistic freedom and judgment" (Kakutani 610). The situation that Kakutani has outlined here is striking. Since when did authors start rewriting books so that they would make more money? The main reason that people become writers is because they have something to say to others, and they want a log of people to hear it, regardless of whether or not they like what they hear. Now that polls are being used to determine how books should be written, this basic reason for writing is in danger of vanishing. What is the point of asking people how you should change your written pieces? The result will inevitably be that any book that is written, will be bland and uninteresting. Patterson might have made a lot of money, and gained a lot of prestige, through the use of "reader feedback," but he also endangered the very reason why books exist. One book that I have read and re-read many times during my adolescence in Dune by Frank Herbert. Dune is a fantastic book, in which Herbert managed to create an entire world with a distinct ecology, a realistic indigenous people, and a carefully crafted storyline that twisted its way to an epic conclusion. After reading Kakutani's article, I find it hard to see Herbert writing Dune using the methods of the new millennium. The book relies heavily on the Arabic language, as can be clearly seen by taking a peek into the "Terminology of the Imperium" section at the back of the book. Throughout this section, there are at least 76 words that one can see are either derived from or are actual words from Arabic, for example, "jihad," "bourka," "aql," and "bi-la kaifa." One of the sub-characters in the book even has an Arabic first name, Feyd Rautha. It is probably for the best that Frank Herbert did not live to see this new age of writing-by-consensus. If he had been able to present Dune to a focus group, the following suggestions would probably have been made: 1)Too much Middle-eastern influences. Try to integrate a more Western feel. 2)Give the characters new names. Leto, Thufir, Gurney, and Feyd are weird. 3)Make the damned thing shorter. We have no patience for books that are 562 pages long. And cut out the appendices. 4)Why is it written in a small print? Herbert would have turned in his grave. Polling is used for finding out people's opinions, and it is an acceptable procedure for this task, as long as it takes into account the level of information available to the public, and recognizes the hidden danger of a possible loss of creativity. ANNOTATION

"A 20-year old veteran of the movie business, [Garth] Drabinsky is methodically transferring Hollywood practices to the stage...For Ragtime, he hired a polling firm to help calibrate audience reactions. The show's book eventually went through some 20 drafts." This instance is an example of how polling is starting to be used as the ultimate decision-maker in artistic fields. The whole allure of theater productions is that people have a chance to see someone else's vision. If theater productions become something that everyone wants to see, then there will no longer be any way that audiences will have their views challenged. Take the play based on Ken Kesey's book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Kesey crafted a text that was both deep and meaningful. Even if one just reads the text, one can almost feel the power of some of the words that are written. The entire play was set in a hospital for the mentally ill, and focused on the conflict between one of the inmates, and the head nurse. It was a play that challenged its audience to think deeper about many things in life. If Kesey had presented his text or had the director of the play presented his script to a focus group, it would have been torn apart for being so far from the "mainstream." If more people start following Drabinsky's method of producing plays, Broadway will soon become synonymous with boredom. Plays will no longer be the works of an individual, created over many days and nights of effort, with no assurances of monetary success at the other end. Instead they will become copies of each other. They will deal with the themes that the American public is comfortable with: live, happiness, freedom, wealth. And nearly every play, if not all plays, will be crafted not in a writer's head, but by the opinions of members of society, comfortable in seeing what they want to see. While the practice of polling, so long as it takes into account the level of information available to the public and recognizes the hidden danger of a possible loss of creativity, is an acceptable procedure for finding out public opinion, it often forms the sole basis for decision-making. This misuse of the polling procedure is increasing the danger of making original artistic productions no longer creative. ANNOTATION

If you have seen any of the following movies, clap your hands: The Rock, Gone in 60 Seconds, Crimson Tide or Pearl Harbor. All of the above movies were produced by the same man: Jerry Bruckhiemer. Bruckhiemer has mastered the art of making action movies, with the emphasis on action. All of the movies above are huge moneymakers, all of them star high-profile actors, and all of them place little emphasis on story. Instead they prefer to deliver the things that the moviegoers crave. They are filled with explosions, plot twists and endings that are either happy or hopeful. There are no loose ends for the audience to ponder and everything is wrapped up. They are the last word in art created focus groups and catered to the masses. If the misuse of the polling apparatus is not curbed, the future looks bleak. Soon, every movie, every play, and every book will seem like clones of each other. ANNOTATION

Work Cited

Kakutani, M. Portrait of the Artist as Focus Group. In L.H. Peterson, J.C. Brereton, & J.E. Hartman (10th ed.), The Norton Reader. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc (609-611).

ANNOTATIONS:

ANNOTATION 1: The first paragraph introduces the topic, polling, with an example that everyone is familiar with: polling in a presidential election. This example also establishes the writer's initial thesis, that "many people find the practice of polling a perfectly acceptable procedure for finding out the wants of the public." While the writer does not impose his own view towards this statement in this paragraph, it will be clear as the essay proceeds. Read Chapter 10 in Writing Analytically on Introductions (191-200) and remember that the "introduction should not and cannot preview a paper's entire interpretation or argument." [return to essay]

ANNOTATION 2: Throughout the essay the writer handles his primary source, Kakutani's article in the Norton Reader, effectively. His strategy is to introduce a direct quote from the primary source right at the beginning of the paragraph. While this strategy is not always the best way to handle direct quotes, the writer does very well to establish the point of the quote and apply it in his own analysis. Here the writer establishes a positive aspect of polling, that it delivers and confirms what the public wants to see. He uses popular writers, Clancy and King, and their popular texts. He also uses President Clinton and his disposition for using polls to gauge the public. [return to essay]

ANNOTATION 3: In this paragraph the writer introduces complicating evidence, that there is a danger to the practice of polling: the public may not always be informed. This complicating evidence is suggested in Kakutani's article. The writer provides a personal experience example to establish it in his own analysis. The last sentence of the paragraph is the first instance in the essay of an evolved thesis. [return to essay]

ANNOTATION 4: The writer continues to develop the complicating evidence of the previous paragraph. In this paragraph he shows what can happen if the practice of polling is taken seriously and used exclusively by writers. He applies a point by Kakutani to his own example, Herbert's Dune. The last sentence of the paragraph is the second evolved version of the thesis. One can begin to predict what the writer's own views about the practice of polling will be. [return to essay]

ANNOTATION 5: In this paragraph, writer pursues the complicating evidence to the point of creating more depth. His application of the complicating evidence to a play based on Kesey's novel sets up his final version of the evolved thesis--which is stated in the last two sentences of the paragraph. Notice how this evolved thesis is a qualification/restriction of the initial thesis. [return to essay]

ANNOTATION 6: In the concluding paragraph the writer ends by applying his evolved thesis to movies by Bruckhiemer. This final application of the evolved thesis emphasizes the writer's views about polling and it concisely applies 3 effective strategies for conclusions mentioned in WA, Chap 10: judgment, culmination, send-off.[return to essay]