Over at Talk Politics, there is an excellent essay on the matter of public opinion. The question being asked is why bloggers are so out of step with it…
Look for instance at the recent debates over identity cards and the 90 days detention issues and the blogsphere is pretty unanimous in opposition. This is in contrast to that much vaulted public opinion, which is stated as being broadly in support on both issues. The piece explores the reasoning rather well, I thought:
“…this is hardly a new argument at all but merely the translation of an old debate to a new arena; one in which one could readily replace Martin’s reference to the ‘British blogosphere subculture’ with the title of any one of the newspapers from the ‘quality’ end of the market – The Times, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph or FT – and still make pretty much the same point.
In terms of simple demographics I’d strongly suspect that the contention that bloggers are ‘unrepresentative’ of the British public as a whole is as near as damn it a tautology. A ‘lifestyle survey’ of the bloggerati would almost certainly show us to be above average in terms of education, employment and all the usual things which go into making arbitrary definitions of social class. Indeed you’d be hard pressed to find much in the way of significant differences between a demographic profile of British bloggers and the target demographics of upmarket newspapers. Unrepresentative we may be but no more so that the combined readership of the Guardian, Independent, Times and Telegraph, so why is it such a big deal that we don’t appear to reflect the presumed opinions of Sun readers?”
And, I guess, the question is; do I want to be associated with the Sun and the ill-informed opinion of the majority of its readers? I’ll get back to you on that one…
I recommend you read the full article, it is an excellent read and makes a valid point about public opinion, its value and who moulds it.
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