• Majorllama@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    17 hours ago

    I wasnt arguing that many people aren’t extremely unhappy with him right now. I was simply making a point that these polls always seem to be way off.

    Like I remember several times when Biden was “doing well” even my super Democrat parents were like “I don’t know who is saying they like this guy”.

    Feels like the type of thing where you would need to ask multiple people from multiple places to get even sorta accurate information. If we took a poll on Lemmy he would have like 1% approval rating. If we took it in bumfuck Alabama he would probably have like 90% approval rating.

    • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      16 hours ago

      I don’t know what polls you’re referring to about Biden, from my understanding he was consistently unpopular since late 2021

      https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/

      Feels like the type of thing where you would need to ask multiple people from multiple places to get even sorta accurate information

      That’s the benefit of 538 metrics, with utilize a vast range of polls detailed below the graphs.

      For other polls such as on policy, I agree that wording and methodology are quite important. For that reason I gravitate towards YouGov and DataForProgress which have had consistently good polling

      • Majorllama@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        15 hours ago

        It wasn’t anything saying Biden was overall good or popular. More like they would read articles mentioning whenever Bidens approval rating would go up and they would get confused who was suddenly happy with him.

        I admittedly I have done zero research into how they actually collect the data for those polls. I just always got the impression that they were not actually asking a wide enough variety of people because the data seems consistently ahead or behind of public sentiment.

        If I were the conspiracy theory type I might think they use polls in an attempt to change public opinions of the president. By saying hes more or less popular than polled they might get people to change their options one way or another. Because we all know lots of people just want to be on the winning team so they feel like less of a failure in their daily existence. Bandwagining is the term I believe. My step-brother in law is this exact type of conspiracy theorist lol.

        • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          15 hours ago

          You can read through their methodologies if interested

          https://today.yougov.com/about/panel-methodology

          https://www.dataforprogress.org/our-methodology

          Public sentiment and public opinions are mostly affected by the rhetoric they hear and lived experience (material conditions).

          Rhetoric is certainly wielded to affect public sentiment, if you’re interested in learning more about how, you should read Manufacturing Consent

          Manufacturing Consent

          The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news “filters,” fall under the following headings: (I) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (~) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and “experts” funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) “flak” as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) “anticommunism” as a national religion and control mechanism. These elements interact with and reinforce one another. The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns.

          https://chomsky.info/consent01/