“Social Pulse” The Role of Survey Research Institutes in shaping Political Awareness during the 2007 Senatorial Elections

Abstract

Social survey research institutions (SWS and Pulse Asia) have been widely known and accepted in the Philippine democratic scene. However, this raises the questions of exactly why do public opinion polling institutes exist and how do they affect the people in general. Along with the identification of answers to these questions, the main objective of this study was to ascertain the role of these survey research institutes in shaping the political awareness of the voting public. As such, the 2007 Senatorial elections was taken as a case study to identify or describe this proposed relationship. Public opinion polling has been established in the Philippines for decades, and as nongovernmental institutions, both social survey research institutes have been conducting regular survey-based researches to monitor the socio-economic condition of the country and to be consequently published to the public. Since these results are claimed to be representative of the collective and aggregated voice of the people, this study sought to make sense of social surveys in relation to the public. The data gathered for this study provided information on the basic awareness and perception of the public on social surveys and survey research institutes. Moreover, this study was also able to show how social surveys in general were a factor in shaping the over-all political awareness of the individual respondents. This was quantified through the correlation of the survey-type that influenced them more and their preference based on the candidate criteria provided. Although descriptive in nature, this research highlighted the role of social survey research institutes as one of the avenues by which the public can obtain the necessary information regarding the socio-economic profile of the country for a more rational and informed citizenry.