Interpreting Polling Data
Oct. 27th, 2004 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaActually, this post has nothing to do with polls or possibly a lot to do with polls.
I've been very skeptical of polls as it seems highly improbable to me that Bush could be so close to 50% support with such a poor showing for his term in office. So what I'm looking instead are numbers that aren't allowed to lie; I'm looking at box office takes for various movies with the aid of the Box Office Mojo website. ( http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2004&wknd=43&p=.htm )
Face it: America is a TV and movie culture and what we watch says a lot about us. So I went to look at the weekend results as I've gotten in the habit of glancing at that sort of thing and I was surprised to discover that Team America is doing quite poorly. Could it be that americans really aren't that excited to see themselves as boisterous obnoxious louts pissing on the rest of the world, or is it just that no one wants to plunk down 10 dollars to watch puppets get it on? Well... Since when have americans ever been hesitant to pass up a cheap laugh? Come on. Adam Sandler movies make more money than this. For that matter, the South Park movie had grossed $45M by the end of it's second weekend, roughly double Team America's take. By contrast, take a glance at the box office for 'Farienheight 911', almost 120M domestic. A good run for a summer blockbuster and completely unheard of for a *documentary.
If this were a persuasive essay, I would now be writing some closing arguement about how this is an interesting look into what america is thinking about and which side they are leaning towards in a way that is perhaps more honest than political polling. On the other hand, this closing paragraph could be seen as a meta arguement by asserting myself as 'honest' by pointing this out. None the less, I think it is important to note that I am obviously biased (see opening sentence) and that all this posts really proves is that I can take some factoid and distort it to suit my purposes just as well as the next person. However, for me at least, these numbers do seem rather interesting when cast in contrast to polling samples.
* 'documentary' defined here as the format and method of obtaining footage as a pre-emptive measure for anyone who might whinge loudly over some minor detail in the content which must therefore obviously render the entire film invalid.
I've been very skeptical of polls as it seems highly improbable to me that Bush could be so close to 50% support with such a poor showing for his term in office. So what I'm looking instead are numbers that aren't allowed to lie; I'm looking at box office takes for various movies with the aid of the Box Office Mojo website. ( http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2004&wknd=43&p=.htm )
Face it: America is a TV and movie culture and what we watch says a lot about us. So I went to look at the weekend results as I've gotten in the habit of glancing at that sort of thing and I was surprised to discover that Team America is doing quite poorly. Could it be that americans really aren't that excited to see themselves as boisterous obnoxious louts pissing on the rest of the world, or is it just that no one wants to plunk down 10 dollars to watch puppets get it on? Well... Since when have americans ever been hesitant to pass up a cheap laugh? Come on. Adam Sandler movies make more money than this. For that matter, the South Park movie had grossed $45M by the end of it's second weekend, roughly double Team America's take. By contrast, take a glance at the box office for 'Farienheight 911', almost 120M domestic. A good run for a summer blockbuster and completely unheard of for a *documentary.
If this were a persuasive essay, I would now be writing some closing arguement about how this is an interesting look into what america is thinking about and which side they are leaning towards in a way that is perhaps more honest than political polling. On the other hand, this closing paragraph could be seen as a meta arguement by asserting myself as 'honest' by pointing this out. None the less, I think it is important to note that I am obviously biased (see opening sentence) and that all this posts really proves is that I can take some factoid and distort it to suit my purposes just as well as the next person. However, for me at least, these numbers do seem rather interesting when cast in contrast to polling samples.
* 'documentary' defined here as the format and method of obtaining footage as a pre-emptive measure for anyone who might whinge loudly over some minor detail in the content which must therefore obviously render the entire film invalid.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-27 05:32 pm (UTC)Also, people are big on Fox News' high ratings but just remember that network news ratings dwarf Fox's best days, a bad day for Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw is more than the best Bill O'Reilly ever saw.
Also, i think the Eminem video "Mosh" perfectly captures the zeitgeist right now. Bush is on his way out. I can feel it in the air. We're not afraid of him anymore.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-27 06:20 pm (UTC)Now we could quibble on which ones arthouse theatres are likely to carry since I don't have a good breakdown of how many screens each movie was carried on for such small-run movies, but if you look at contributions to parties and places like MoveOn.org, there are a LOT more (and I mean orders of magnitude more) small donations coming in from individuals on the left than there are on the right, and when you get right down to it, for all the money and power people like Rupert Murdock have, they can only cast one vote (and in Murdock's case, none in the US) All those little voices can make themselves heard just as loud as the most powerful men in america on election day.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-27 06:30 pm (UTC)And you're right about the small donations. They brought the democrats to financial parity with the republicans this year after Bush raised a massive $175 million war chest from corporate fat cats. howard dean's candidacy showed the way and kerry picked up the ball. americans really are taking their country back.
kinda hate speechy
Date: 2004-10-27 06:42 pm (UTC)I think the reason the documentaries did well is that people wanted to feel less alone; that they wanted to feel that other people out there didn't like the Republicans and what they were doing, despite what we have been constantly bombarded with. In contrast any right wing stuff was what we were already getting - why go to a theater to see that unless you're a real die-hard like one of my former supervisors?
And by now, I think a lot of people are just totally burned out on anything political. Leftwingers are tired of their fellow citizens being monsters and hearing about how the right wing is likely to win, and the right wing started out with the assumption that liberals are monsters and just plugged in data. Without anything actually supporting their case, all they can do is rely on the same emotional bullshit that was tired in 2002.
So a satire doesn't really make anyone feel less alone, and it's too topical to be just a light hearted evening at the movies. Maybe Team America would have swept the box office a year or two years ago, but not now.