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Public Opinion, Public Perception, and Public Understanding
Published in Susanna Hornig PriestCRC, Nanotechnology and the Public, 2017
Most opinion polls aim to generate results that describe the opinions of “people in general,” and they do this by attempting to reach a random2 sample of respondents. Because reactions to technology often involve values and beliefs, opinion polls can provide only limited information. A number of factors interfere with getting an accurate barometer that can measure public thinking. Random samples are likely to do a good job of reflecting the population in question, but they are increasingly difficult and expensive to create (due to factors such as increasing social mobility, meaning lists based on addresses or telephone numbers rapidly go out of date, as well as rising cell phone use, so that no one telephone system or listing is an adequate starting point). Lowered response rates, partly due to survey burnout, as we are all asked to complete numerous polls on a regular basis, also introduce bias. This is not limited to the issue of attracting people who have special interests in the topic of a given survey; responders may also have more cooperative personalities, more time on their hands, or have already formed strong opinions they want to express.
Seismic noise to public health signal: investigating the effects of pandemic guidance in Mexico
Published in Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 2022
Abril Saldaña-Tejeda, Xyoli Pérez-Campos, Elizabeth Reddy
Public opinion is a particularly challenging but necessary element of this account. Since the early twentieth century, the significance of public opinion has been debated in relation to its power to shape democracy, its role as a “network of sensors” that shapes the public sphere, and its potential to shape public policy. Opinion polls, often in the form of surveys, are the most common method to gather the view of the public on any specific subject. Surveys are frequently linked to the merits of evidence-based policy. However, caution must be taken when looking at surveys as the “aggregate of all that is thought and said on a subject” (Fulton 1920). As Adashi et. all (2020, 437) note: One important criticism of opinion polls is that respondents often offer “non-attitudes” to pollsters because their underlying views are unstable. Furthermore, when it comes to complex topics or those that have escaped sustained public attention, individual responses are unlikely to have benefitted from information, reflection, and judgment. The aforementioned imperfections notwithstanding, the bent of public opinion polls must not be dismissed or ignored as a potential driver of public action.
An approach to decision-making with triangular fuzzy reciprocal preference relations and its application
Published in International Journal of Systems Science, 2018
With the rapid development of human society, the competition between enterprises has never been as intense as today. Of course, it includes computer enterprises. As well known, there are four computer manufacturers: x1: Apple, x2: Hewlett–Packard (HP), x3: Thinkpad, and x4: Dell. An organisation launches an opinion poll to ascertain their reputations and competitive advantages in peer companies according to several criteria, such as brand, price, function, appearance, weight, etc. To simplify the evaluation procedure, we only need their comprehensive comparisons by using real numbers from 0 to 10 to represent from extremely bad to extremely good. According to the results of investigation, the smallest, the largest and the most frequency values are respective of 4, 7 and 6 of object x1 over x2. To denote this preference, we can simply apply triangular fuzzy number (4, 6, 7). When we divide it by 10, we derive (0.4, 0.6, 0.7). Following this process, the following TFRPR is obtained: To derive the ranking order of computer enterprises, the following steps are needed.