Language, Media and Opinion Polling

This chapter develops Bourdieu’s original criticisms of opinion polls (Bourdieu 1984, 1990b, 1993b) and his analysis of the political implications, and sociological meaning, of ‘Don’t Know’ responses. Bourdieu was critical of democratic claims that polls make it possible for the working-class ‘silent majority’ to enter into the political field (Berinsky 2004: 8; Champagne 2005: 119) because it is they who most regularly resort to the Don’t Know option. Bourdieu castigated the polling industry for its role in more general processes of symbolic violence and political domination. But he was also concerned with how polls and the mass media interact, and the role of language in polling discourse in marginalizing opinion ‘from below’. In this respect, then, Bourdieu’s ideas on polling are important in the study of the media and language.