Zur Informationsqualität von Zeitungsberichten über Meinungsumfragen: eine exemplarische Studie zur medialen Konstruktion von Realität

Polls are a frequent item in mass media reporting. However, the quality of the information conveyed in these reports is often a crucial issue. So far, studies of the quality of poll reporting were based mostly on the analysis of disclosure standards established by the polling industry. The focus of the present study reaches beyond these standards and includes additional criteria concerning the accuracy, transparency and balance or bias in poll reporting. Using analytic tools from both media linguistics and survey methodology, we will discuss the reporting in a single exemplary case. We demonstrate that merely following the usual disclosure standards as such does not guarantee reporting that is adequate in terms of quality. Once we take into account the entire media performance, the questions asked, the validity of the data, the intertextual processes of adaptation typical of the media (e.g. substitution, shortening, dramatization, personalization, etc.), as well as the ensuing interpretations, we show the ways news can be demoscopically constructed in poll coverage, and how they can be affected by the journalistic processes of selection and representation.