SurveyUSA
Encyclopedia
SurveyUSA is a polling
firm in the United States
. It conducts market research
for corporations and interest groups, but is best known for conducting opinion polls for various political offices and questions. SurveyUSA conducts these opinion polls under contract by over 50 television
stations (who also use the SurveyUSA market research to fine tune their newscasts for higher ratings).
The difference between SurveyUSA and other telephone polling firms is twofold. First, SurveyUSA does not use live call center employees, but an automated system. Taped questions are asked of the respondent by a professional announcer (usually a local news anchor), and the respondent is invited to press a button on their touch tone telephone
or record a message at a prompt designating their selection. Secondly, SurveyUSA uses more concise language, especially for ballot propositions, than competitors. This can lead to diverging results, such as for California Proposition 76, where one version of the SurveyUSA question with a one sentence description, polled significantly differently compared to another version with a three sentence description (which was similar to a version of the question used by other pollsters, which used a five or six sentence question). http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportEmail.aspx?g=46e3e2ae-5307-45c6-978b-ae6e634d2121
SurveyUSA is owned by Hypotenuse, Inc., a privately-held company in New Jersey.
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
firm in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It conducts market research
Market research
Market research is any organized effort to gather information about markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy...
for corporations and interest groups, but is best known for conducting opinion polls for various political offices and questions. SurveyUSA conducts these opinion polls under contract by over 50 television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
stations (who also use the SurveyUSA market research to fine tune their newscasts for higher ratings).
The difference between SurveyUSA and other telephone polling firms is twofold. First, SurveyUSA does not use live call center employees, but an automated system. Taped questions are asked of the respondent by a professional announcer (usually a local news anchor), and the respondent is invited to press a button on their touch tone telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
or record a message at a prompt designating their selection. Secondly, SurveyUSA uses more concise language, especially for ballot propositions, than competitors. This can lead to diverging results, such as for California Proposition 76, where one version of the SurveyUSA question with a one sentence description, polled significantly differently compared to another version with a three sentence description (which was similar to a version of the question used by other pollsters, which used a five or six sentence question). http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportEmail.aspx?g=46e3e2ae-5307-45c6-978b-ae6e634d2121
SurveyUSA is owned by Hypotenuse, Inc., a privately-held company in New Jersey.
External links
- SurveyUSA web site
- SurveyUSA President Jay Leve interviewed by The Hotline, National JournalNational JournalNational Journal is a nonpartisan American weekly magazine that reports on the current political environment and emerging political and policy trends. National Journal was first published in 1969. Times Mirror owned the magazine from 1986 to 1997, when it was purchased by David G. Bradley...
's Daily Briefing on Politics - http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/69/5/655?ijkey=z5sAQQb5cEln2oB&keytype=refArticle from Public Opinion QuarterlyPublic Opinion QuarterlyPublic Opinion Quarterly is an academic journal published by Oxford University Press for the American Association for Public Opinion Research...
] by Mark Blumenthal, author of the Mystery Pollster blog, in which Blumenthal discusses advantages and disadvantages of the automated survey technology used in SurveyUSA's polls.