TORONTO, December 15, 2005 -- New research on the 2004 Canadian federal election campaign challenges conventional wisdom about the nature and impact of polling technology on the political process during federal elections.

 

Opinion polls that dominate election campaigns in Canada are undermining the democratic process, according to Bob Hanke, an assistant professor in York University’s Communications Studies Program and graduate program in Communication and Culture. In a report expected to be published next spring, Hanke looks beyond concerns about the accuracy of polls or the effect that publishing polls has on voters’ decision-making.

 

Hanke argues that polls are not neutral techniques for foreseeing collective voting behaviour in advance. “Polls are not merely a symptom of our obsession with societal self-observation, or merely a sign of citizens’ alienation from politics. They are a political technology and they play a primary role in political discourse.”

 

According to Hanke, when voter preference polls dominate political reporting and commentary, the “poll-driven” news media make an independent contribution to the political reality and to election campaign dynamics. He states that “Bell Globemedia and CanWest Global Communication Corporation commission leader or party preference polls rather than policy preference polls. The overload of pre-election, poll-driven news uses up space which could have been used for analysis and commentary.”

 

In Hanke’s view, the growth of instant polls represents a complete break with social science methodology. “Daily reporting of survey results is supplemented by up-to-the-second public opinion, accelerating the flow of information within the circuit between the TV screen, the newspaper headline, the Internet and the ballot box,” he says. “This accelerated public opinion has effects apart from any message.”

 

‘”By introducing seat projection technology and analysis, the news media aim to simulate the election in advance, pre-empting the time for deliberation and debate,” Hanke claims. “As a result, the public is inundated with political information but remains uninformed, uncertain and never quite sure of the differences in platform, policies or ideas among the contenders for political power.”

 

In tandem with the non-proportional system of voting, what Hanke calls media “poll-itics” contributes to a growing Canadian democratic deficit. “Rather than being empowered by more polls, people are suspicious not only of particular leaders or parties, but of the way the political game is played,” he says.

 

York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city.  The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 190,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 faculties and 21 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries.  This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.

 

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For more information, contact:
Bob Hanke at bhanke@yorku.ca or

Nancy J. White, Director, Media Relations, York University, 416-736-5603/whiten@yorku.ca