Tornado Alley (PROG)

[easymoney101]

ONLINE SURVEYS
In contrast, MSNBC's online surveys (Live Votes) may reflect the views of far more individuals, but they are not necessarily representative of the general population.


To begin with, the people who respond choose to do so — they are not randomly selected and asked to participate, but instead make the choice to read a story about a certain topic and then vote on a related question. There is thus no guarantee that the votes would reflect anything close to a statistical sample, even of MSNBC.com users: The participants in a Sports Live Vote and a Politics Live Vote may overlap, but each group is likely to be dominated by people with an interest in each particular area. In addition, while MSNBC.com’s Live Votes are designed to allow only one vote per user, someone who wants to vote more than once could simply use another computer or another Internet account.


Additionally, while computer and Internet usage is growing daily, only 41.5 percent of Americans have online access at home, according to a study by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration released in October 2000. In contrast, more than 90 percent of Americans live in homes with a telephone. The study also shows a disproportionately higher rate of online access among whites and Asians, and people with higher incomes and levels of education.


This does not mean that Internet polling cannot be scientific. Harris Interactive, for example, has set up a system with checks and balances that allow it to use the Internet to obtain survey results comparable with more traditional methods.


But MSNBC’s Live Votes are not intended to be a scientific sample of national opinion. Instead, they are part of the same interactive dialogue that takes place in our online chat sessions: a way to share your views on the news with MSNBC writers and editors and with your fellow users. Let us know what you think.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3704453/