What is MediaCurves?
May 9, 2008

Those of you who view this web site may wonder why it exists. Here is why: 

Remember Howard Dean, January 2004….Iowa….When the media transformed him from political phenomena to political fool.  The evening of his rant I viewed it live.  Went to bed and awakened to what the pundits turned in to example of volatility, mental instability and worse.  I viewed his actions as that of a smart doctor….and lousy cheer leader.  But what would Americans have perceived of his attempt of giving hope to his followers if they were asked before the media idiots interpreted his actions as those of a nut case?

Mediacurves studies are launched shortly after a new commercial is released, a controversial interview is broadcast or other media event destined to be conversation around the water cooler is dissected and torn apart by evening cable wolves..  We try to predict what the pundits are going to yammer about and conduct a scientific communications research study to find America’s view of an event before they are “poisoned” by a bunch of suits with nothing to do in the evening other than to try to convince Americans of their narrow view…right or left.

The other reason we do this is to get noticed.  Our company does this stuff for money…testing commercials, print advertising and web content.  So, keep viewing and see how America responds to the next event over analyzed by the talking heads and see how they reacted to an event before being convinced of someone else’s view.

Testing Negative and Insulting Remarks by Clergy
May 2, 2008

Over the last couple of months mediacurves.com has tested and retested comments by Reverend Wright and the response by Barak Obama to his remarks.  The bottom line is that Americans are irritated by Reverend Wright and seem to accept the disclaimers and responses by Barak Obama.  After multiple waves of these media clips there appears to be no reason to continue these studies.  Let the polls be the judge (as poor and inaccurate as they are).

But it would be interesting to test American’s response now to the recorded comments of Billy Graham in 1972 regarding Jews in the Media.  Would American’s find his comments … even with the distorted audio…more or less disturbing than those of Reverend Wright.  The interaction between these men of faith went like this:

Graham: "A lot of the Jews are great friends of mine. They swarm around me and are friendly to me, because they know that I am friendly to Israel and so forth. But they don't know how I really feel about what they're doing to this country, and I have no power and no way to handle them." 

"You must not let them know," replies Nixon. 

When Mr. Graham asserts that Jewish people control the news media, Nixon asks, "You believe that?" 

"Yes, sir," says Mr. Graham. 

"Oh, boy. So do I," says Nixon. "I can't ever say that, but I believe it." 

Both “men of God”…I am referring to Reverend Wright and Reverend Graham. 

The Media Needs An Excuse for Bad Polling Methods
April 28, 2008

Two weeks before the New Hampshire Primary Hillary is up in the polls.  The week before the Primary Clinton’s numbers slip and the pundits see Obama pulling out a victory.  Two days before the Primary, Hillary weeps, she wins. The news folks, desperate to cover up the lousy polling results, announce that her new exhibition of emotion is the cause for her victory.

Could it be that the polling results they touted were erratic and not representative of the preferences of the New Hampshire voters? 

Remember when Clinton was slipping in the polls in Texas?  The Friday before the Primary, her campaign launched the now famous 3 AM ad.  She wins Texas to the surprise of many, and her victory is attributed to this marginal ad that has since become the butt of jokes and is now an election 2008 cliché.  Why did the media think this ad moved voters, and what data did they base it on?   

The reason may simply be that the polling methods that were developed in the 1930s and 1940s have become obsolete.  Polling seems to be the only social science where the methodology hasn’t changed in 70 years. With technology offering many channels of communications, the results have deteriorated to the point of being interesting simply because they are inaccurate.

Today, most voters are unwilling to speak to strangers on the phone. Therefore, pollsters are left with people who will accept a call at any time of day, and are willing to bare their souls about issues that are considered to be too personal to discuss by the majority of Americans. 

What can be done to ameliorate this situation?  I suggest the following:

1. Stop reporting flawed results or change the polling methodology.  Until pollsters can validate their results and prove that those people who speak with the Gallups and Zogbys of the world are similar to the vast majority, who will not answer their calls, their results should be considered no more than a nice guess. They should bring their methodology into the 1990’s and start supplementing their “random digit dialing” with large Internet panels and cell phone calls. By increasing their sample size and diversifying methods of response, they will improve their results

2. Stop using margins of error as a reliable measure of precision.  Margins of error are useful with a random sample.  However, when reporting data from a relatively small marginally representative segment of the population that is willing to talk to strangers on the phone, this does mean much.

Pennsylvania Not a War of Commercials
April 24, 2008

Pennyslvania was not a war of commercials.  In fact, the result of the election would likely be no different if the campaigns had saved their money on the production and media buys for these worthless spots and spent it on Amtrak whistle stop tours.

Mediacurves studied key ads with samples of 400-800 voters, measuring emotion, impact on intensity of support and the conclusions are:

• Undecideds were unmoved by the pa advertising campaigns
• Emotions evoked by the Clinton ads were frequently described as skeptical, irritating, confusing
• Obama’s ads made undecideds feel good…hopeful, affectionate, confident.  But had no impact on moving voters… undecided felt good but remained uncommitted after exposure to the ads.

So why bother.  Well election history suggests that ads can make a difference.

Willie Horton, Boston Bay ended the Dukakis era.  Swiftboating is part of the American vernacular and changed the outcome of the 2004 election.  

The 2008 primaries have continued the Democrats tradition of creating boring ads that have little affect.  

On to Indiana.