The Power of Metrics in Online Polls
Sara El Habbash and Mira Matar
The book “Metric Power” defines metric power as “a concept that intends to focus on the relation between measurement, circulation and possibility” (Beer, 2016). The book’s author David Beer further explains that the interpretation of this relationship simplifies the contribution of metrics to the social and numerical governance of individuals and population. The analysis also helps to understand the role of metrics in regard to power, dynamics and structure.
However, to able to understand the relationship between measurement, circulation and possibility, the book divides power into several themes:
Visibility and Invisibility:
First, the book explains that the concept of metric power is based on its sense of visibility and invisibility (Beer, 2016). This characteristic permits metric power to translate supremacy and value the way it requests. Metric power can shape the translation of power onto practices, objects or behaviors either by allowing them to be visible or by making them invisible. Consequently, metric power has the ability to either add value and empower human practices, objects and behaviors, or devalue and disempower them.
Ordering and Categorizing:
Metric power also works through order and category. It contributes to the projection and translation of ordering processes and categorization of people into the social world.
Speaking about politics in particular, politicians get their proper order according to polls and surveys conducted on people. For instance, people’s votes precise which candidate is the winner and which candidate loses in an election. As such, the power of metric categorizes candidates being weak or strong, and thus it values or devalues and puts each politician in his proper order according to data collected from people.
Bring the future into the present:
In addition to that, metric power sets desired outcomes. As such, measurements are used to try to reach the pre-set outcomes. This influences current decision making processes , in which people alter their formulae to meet the pre-set outcomes. This is a facet of “bringing the future into the present”. In that context, metric power creates an imagined future for individuals to attempt to reach. It shapes the decisions and choices they make by ensuring that they are working towards the desired outcome.
Justification and Authenticity:
Metric power is also used to authenticate, justify and legitimize. It can be used to define what is legitimate and genuine by giving them a mark of authenticity. Consequently, metric power is used to authenticate people, actions, systems and practices. Since numbers are associated with objectivity, metric power can also justify decisions and these decisions are highly influenced by numerical calculation.
However, metrics may in some instances be misrepresentative, misleading, or even inaccurate, yet they have a powerful sway. The way that metric-based indicators simplify the complexity of the social world may be one reason for us to question their representativeness, but this doesn’t make them any less forceful.
A key component or property of metrics in affording this sway is that theyr are seen to be neutral and objective. Metrics become very much a material reality once they are drawn upon or adopted into social and cultural practice.
The concept of metrics is to sensitize audiences to the role of metrics in the performance of the social and the intricacies of the numerical governance of individual and populations. Anyone has access to participating in polls and creating ones, whether individuals, companies, or politicians, everyone wants to know what their audience wants in order to cater for their needs accordingly.
While it looks good for trump, pollsters and some journalists argued that they are informal, unscientific “polls” on news sites produce junk data that does not indicate how the public actually feels, and should not be believed as an indication of anything. They allow audiences to engage online and portray their feelings or opinions about certain issues,
“But they’re not necessarily good at telling you, in general, what people think, because we don’t know who has come to that website and who has taken it” (Brodie, 2016).
Unlike professional pollsters that use scientific statistical methods to ensure that the random samples are demographically appropriate, online polls do nothing of the sort, and are not random, allowing anyone who finds the poll to vote. They are thus open to manipulation from those who would want to advertise their products and spread their propaganda.
“Most reader response surveys on news sites are done more to benefit the news organization than to educate the public,” said Frank Newport, the editor in chief of Gallup.
For example, in Lebanon, data collection is conducted by politicians in order to determine where to place their candidates and how to choose their election program and campaign.
Moreover, since metric power is used to relate between the present and the future, to shape their future expectations and goals, and accomplish what they want based on the present results of the polls and manage their choices to prevent their loss. However, the government and politicians, while knowing the final results in advance, control the results of the polls to gain wider popularity and acceptance and promote their campaign.
In conclusion, metrics play an important and an intensifying role in shaping the attitudes and behaviors of our everyday lives. Polls have taken the poetry out of politics. Had they become part of the political story, polls are just being used as tools of voter suppression: they are an attempt to not reflect public opinion, but to shape it. On a less serious note, one politician said “I always lose the election in the polls, and I always win it on election day”
References
Beer, D. (2016). Metric Power . London : Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Victor, D. (2016, September 28). Why You Shouldn’t Trust ‘Polls’ Conducted Online. Retrieved from The New York Times : https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/us/politics/why-you-shouldnt-believe-most-online-polls.html
