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Title: Ask a silly question Reference: Director, John Kastner; producers, John
Kastner, John Martin, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Abstract: Examines the accuracy of public opinion polls and shows how easy it is to bias a poll and manipulate peoples' opinions. Library of Congress subjects: Sociology subjects: Reviews and Numerical Ratings (2) The overarching message of this film seems to be 'distrust polling research'. We see numerous clips of people who are being surveyed profess opinions on completely fabricated, silly topics, which they cannot know anything about (much like Rick Mercer's 'talking to Americans' shtick). Pollsters are portrayed as cunning strategists who can bias survey results in order to get them the answers that they want. There are some nice demonstrations of how polls are biased as a result of question wording and interviewer effects. A discussion of declining response rates is nicely illustrated by a door-to-door surveyor encountering person after person claiming that they 'don't live there', though their actions clearly belie them. The main critique I have of this film is that there's no real distinction made between 'opinion polling', 'market research' (product testing), and government/academic survey research - all three appear equally questionable. The viewer is never given the impression that it's actually possible to conduct valid survey research, nor any indication of the techniques for doing so. Andie Noack (3) A briskly-paced attention-getting presentation on biases in polling and survey research, addressing interviewer error (e.g., fraud), question wording/context biases, and respondents’ willingness to go along with the perceived wishes of their interviewers. Examples are drawn from candid camera shots in Toronto and New York – e.g., showing people avowing that a cayenne-sprinkled chocolate cake was delicious, that a fictitious character rated well in his role as Senator, and that the U.S. should go to war with Canada over the “silverfish issue”. Language is non-technical, and the examples provided may lead students to conclude that “you can show anything with a survey /statistics.” That simply isn’t true (if so I would have published much more!): biases of the spectacular degree documented here are actually rare in well-constructed academic studies. However, the video has been received enthusiastically by students in my fourth-year classes and would be suitable for second year students too. The only complaint I’ve had is that the video seems anti-American to a few students, as New Yorkers feature in some of the more outlandishly foolish situations. Kathy Bischoping (1) I didn’t like this at all, not for the most part. I didn’t like the title – I thought it was misleading and didn’t really grab the content. The battlefield music distracted from the content and was the most annoying thing in the whole movie. I also didn’t think it was really sociology related, so much as about marketing research. I don’t see in any way how this is significant to sociologists, except on a really small scale in that it talked about how research can be manipulated. I don’t know if this would be useful. On the other hand, it does teach you to be a critical consumer of the information you read about surveys & polls. I also liked that there were a lot of interviews, discussions with people in the research business, though at times they had unnecessary sections, e.g., of the pollster Morton Walsh smoking, which took away from the film. For the most part it was kind of boring & wouldn’t capture an audience. Marsha McQueen (undergraduate) (4) This film was very funny. I think it will make
learning fun for students and the Canadian context will allow the students
to connect to the film. Perhaps humour was needed to make this film
tolerable, as the power many of the polling companies in the film claim
to have over public opinion and the working conditions of their employees
was rather depressing. This film will definitely force students question
the legitimacy and usefulness of statistical research. Sarah Newman
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