My Opinion about Opinion Surveys

by Francisco C. Castro

What I write is just an opinion. It risks being non-objective and heavily biased. But I’d like to share it. I hope it does not promote the harm of others.

Do we need a survey to find out how the government is doing? Do we need a survey for finding out the “popularity” or “unpopularity” an administration? Does an administration need to say it is popular in order to lead the country? Opinion and popularity seem to be so important; they are like the barometer of leading the country. The belief that is promoted is this: that the more popular an administration is, the better is its governance.

Surveys take the appearance of “representing the view of the people”. Surveys then create opinion climates promoting either a political discord or an avoidance of political discord. To create a discord a survey will show the growing unpopularity of an administration. To avoid this a survey will show that the status quo continues to be popular. 

Producing opinion eventually produces real effects. It is a little bit like tsismis. In tsismis there can be very little basis on facts. But by producing the tsismis the tismosos and tsismosas start believing in a reality applied to the victim. Even if the facts are not founded the relationships start to revolve around an imagined reality thereby creating a real—and unfortunate—form of relationship with the victim.

Now, consider a positive tsismis—a tsismis that promotes, this time, a good image of, say, an administration. A survey will give results and thereby create a real condition; people will then continue accepting the governance of an administration. This clinches somehow political survival.
A survey can have such a crucial influence on political survival. Through publication of results, a survey can make people continue or disconnect with an administration. A survey does have an effect on political survival. This explains, I think, the "addiction" to surveys. I will mention this later.   

The data of a survey do not simply describe a here-and-now situation. By repeating over and over again the popularity (or unpopularity) of an administration the survey strengthens (or weakens) the legitimacy of the administration. The future is either assured or lost. It is not just about the here-and-now.

A survey can be a kind of “pyromancy”. “Pyro” means fire. So there is someone who watches the flames, say of a candle, and interprets the shapes to predict the fate of the future. A survey lights up its own fire and then tells us, by newspaper or TV, that an administration has the fate of…. Then we start to believe. Our beliefs about an administration have thus been produced. We start believing in the interpretation of the shapes of a survey’s flame.

Of course a survey feeds us its pyromancy in tandem with the media. There is an implicit coordination between media and survey firms. It is enough that a broadsheet repeats the popularity (or unpopularity) of an administration and make it look so real even if the basis is also opinions of respondents to questionnaires. Repeat and repeat the opinion of a survey…then a reality emerges, a reality founded on opinion too. But it now has the force of being real because people shape their relationships accordingly.

Notice that journalists might listen to survey results (or turn a deaf ear to results). Notice how the usual media work. Notice the implicit coordination between media and survey firms.

We understand why there is an addiction to surveys. We have seen how surveys, in partnership with journalists, really affect the political climate. We might ask too the following. 

• This is about paghihigante. If a survey promotes the unpopularity of an administration, could it be motivated by a sort of “revenge” particularly on the part of those who “hire” the survey firm? 
• This is about pagsisipsip. If a survey promotes the popularity of an administration could it be motivated by the desire to “sipsip” (I do not see an English equivalent to this word) on the part of those who “hire” the firms? 

            Notice that underneath is the possibility of a third party. If there is the survey firm and there are the media, then the third party is the “hiring” group. We are not told by survey firms who this third party is. Curious, eh?

The threat of a survey is in its announcing unpopularity. It is enough that a belief in unpopularity is created to start a discord. The “magic” of a survey is in its announcing popularity. It is enough that a belief in popularity is created to sustain an administration. 

Notice how less important is the FOI bill compared to the place accorded to surveys. The FOI bill requires factual discourse. Surveys are satisfied with opinions. If an administration rides on a popular opinion but with hard-to-accept facts then it might resist the urgency of the FOI bill. Meanwhile the administration will keep on insisting that we trust it even in the lack--or absence--of factual information.