Like many of you, I have visited Gezi Park over the last few days. While walking around, I noticed that a lot of the protesters are young and they seem new to the business of protesting. They had strongly held views on a lot of topics but are not overtly political.
My observation is about as scientifically valid as the poll released by Bilgi University earlier this week. I’m not going to repeat the findings. That so many respected journalists are citing and retweeting it without mentioning (or probably even looking to see) that, according to the exceedingly vague methodology statement, it’s a 20 hour online survey of 3000 people, is vexing. I’m going to assume (probably incorrectly, but I’m struggling to be generous) that there’s more information about the methodology in the Turkish, but when I saw the word “online” that’s when I clicked “close tab.”
Polling 101: Online surveys are representative of nothing except the universe of people who 1) knew about it, 2) had internet access during the 20 hours it was open, 3) felt like responding. Participants were not randomly selected; they choose to participate, which makes them different at least one way from those who did not. It’s called selection bias.
Even worse, it appears that a lot of folks are repeating data from the poll because “it seems to make sense.” That’s confirmation bias, which is also sloppy.
If you really have to cite that poll, I suggest phrasing it thusly, “According to a worthless online survey of Gezi Park protesters publicly released by Bilgi University, which you’d think, as an academic institution would know better……”
There are ways to randomly select a sample of protesters and find out more about their demographics and attitudes. It’s time consuming and expensive, like good research usually is. Wait until someone does that, then report it.
I have something to say approximately every four years. I’m like a pollster cicada.
