Assessing the public’s opinion

Oct 16, 2013 Editorial

In a land where authentic surveys of public opinion are as rare as the proverbial “blue moon”, it is often extremely difficult to assess the majority opinion of the Guyanese public regarding controversial national issues.
Despite this difficulty in Guyana’s multi-faceted society, it is often critical for government and other stakeholders to evaluate the weight of public opinion before embarking on ventures that deeply affect people’s lives. It is especially important to probe public opinion on controversial issues, not only to discover what the majority of Guyanese think about these issues, but also why they hold such views and what they want to see happen.
Life in Guyana is replete with examples of this necessity, such as the billion-dollar Amaila Falls Hydro Project, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport expansion and the Marriott Hotel, to name a few. Unfortunately, almost all attempts by government, the media and other interested groups to venture into the realm of assessing public opinion in Guyana are far from “scientific” and yield highly questionable results.
It is interesting to note that many of the viewpoints, purporting to represent the majority opinion of the Guyanese public, are entertaining but meaningless, because they were obtained under seriously flawed, unscientific circumstances.
For instance, it is quite evident that many persons erroneously regard the opinion of the majority of letter writers to newspapers, or the viewpoint of the majority of those who call in on various TV talk shows, as representing the opinion of the public at large.
The reality is that many opinions that are widely publicised in Guyana are specifically expressed to advance particular causes. Clearly, certain special interest groups try to give the impression that the views are the views of the entire country. Such groups, which include some media houses, are well aware that public opinion can be manipulated by weighting to produce some desired result. That is why Guyana experiences the phenomenon of different sources presenting widely divergent viewpoints on various issues as though these represent the prevailing public view of those issues.
In this flawed process, many persons overlook the fact that public opinion is not static. The people’s views about an issue develop and change over time, according to many variables, like the amount of information available or the emergence of societal pressures. Sometimes public opinion is an evolutionary process, moving from poorly informed reactions to more carefully considered conclusions.
Recognition that public opinion can progress in stages, is a key element of properly assessing public opinion. Changeable public opinion is sometimes mistaken for settled public judgment, with unfortunate consequences.
The initial public view of an issue is often affected by strong, emotionally-laden feelings and opinions, which can be unstable and changeable. The raw and unformed quality of public opinion, at this stage, may be vastly different at a later stage, when public opinion is better informed and people have a better understanding of an issue or problem.
For example, public opinion on the issue of law enforcement officers fatally shooting delinquent youths who are believed to be planning a robbery, or appear to be preparing to commit such an act, may swing one way at the height of a public outcry in relation to excessive force or mistaken identity, and another way when people have a better understanding of the facts, and the consequences of the views they hold.
In light of the above, it stands to reason that when the resolution of important public issues hinges on the majority viewpoint of the public, there should be extreme caution regarding the results of public consultations (particularly when it comes to spending taxpayers’ money) or any other assessment of the public’s opinion.
Maybe it would be best to conduct such surveys after there has been long and ample public information on the issues, and public opinion is fully developed.
Furthermore, there appears to be dire need for authentic scientific surveys of public opinion in Guyana. It is certainly vital to have access to reliable, stable and accurate assessments of the opinions held by the majority of the Guyanese people on various key issues, which accurately reflect their values, priorities, and beliefs.
If Guyana could acquire the means of accurately measuring the weight of public opinion, this would go a long way to help bring about the fair and reasonable resolution of difficult matters.

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Assessing the public’s opinion

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