The media coverage of the practice and results of public opinion polling on the issue has definitely changed over time. A general search conducted on the Lexus Nexus Academic Universe using key phrase “age discrimination at employment” search limited to Major U.S. and World Publications, TV and Radio Broadcast Transcripts, blogs and web publications with no time limits gives out 973 hits. Age discrimination is definitely a much discussed topic in respected media outlets. The majority of these articles or media coverage seems to be done recently. A search done on Lexus Nexus Academic Universe about polls and survey concerning the phrase “age discrimination at employment” had 402 hits. Here again, polls being covered in the media increased in frequency recently.

The 1986 polls done by University of North Dakota asked a very general question in which age was just one of the many variables, the answer most selected (32.8%) was that people being treated differently based on of race, religion, sex, age, physical handicap, national origin, mental illness, or mental retardation is a problem. The 1993 Los Angeles Times polls which asked about where people felt the most discriminated against in terms of age had more specific answers. 55% answered that they felt the most discriminated against at work and 12 % said they felt discriminated due to their age when trying to get a job or keep a job. The results of the, ICM/Age Concern (2001) polls suggested that 30% of the people interviewed said they had a friend or someone who they knew that experienced age discrimination at work.
The most recent poll that the search engine located was that of AARP (2008) asking its sample to level their concerns about age discrimination at employment suggested that 14% are extremely concerned, 18% are very concerned, 24% are somewhat concerned, 18% are not very concerned and 23% are not at all concerned.

A 1993 Los Angeles Times poll asked about ways in which the samples have experienced the greatest amount of age discrimination. The answer categories given were, at work, stores/public places, trying to get/keep a job, doctors, people you meet, government, media and other. Similarly, ICM/Age Concern (2001) poll asked if those being polled new anyone, such as a friend or relative, who has been discriminated against because of their age in various areas, one of them being age.
Seven down the road, AARP (2008) asked more relevant question on age discrimination at employment/workplace. The poll asked about how those being polled viewed age discrimination at employment as a major concern. AARP conducted similar polls with similar questions on 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008.

University of North Dakota Poll

University of North Dakota (1986) poll asked a general discrimination question that uased age as a variable or answer category. The question asked how important the sample though each categories are in terms of treating people differently. The variable indicated were race, religion, sex, age, physical handicap, national origin, mental illness, or mental retardation. This example illustrates how “age’ as a form of discrimination was acknowledged but used only as a one of the many variables in discrimination against individuals at large and not only at employment.

Pollsters first started asking questions about age discrimination in general around 1986 according issue history search performed on the “Polling the Nation” website. Moreover, pollsters started touching issues relevant to age discrimination at employment around 2001. After using various key word search in “Polling the Nation”, Gallop and AARP search engines, it can be concluded that neither age discrimination nor age discrimination at employment are been covered as a main topic. However, many polls focusing on discrimination as a topic have asked questions related to age as a form and basis of discrimination.

alternative polling devise

Using Fiskens’ idea of deliberative polling, one can devise a similar poll but with the added benefits of technologies that have emerged since the 1990’s when he developed his process. IN a very similar fashion as his, a representative sample of the nation can be obtained as the stage one of this process. Next, using a Computer Assisted Self Interviewing (CASI), in which, the computer administers a structured set of questions to the respondent and in the process records the respondent's answers, preliminary responses can be documented (Aquilino, Supple and Wright: 1998) In the next stage of the process, the participants will be asked to participants will be asked to be engaged in a modified version of the deliberative polling technique. Here, internet will be used as a means to replace resource, money and time constraining process of gathering many people at one spot, organizing them, organizing focus groups, televising it and polling again.
An informative and interactive issue website will be created. The participants will be asked to engage in discussions online, read information provided by the experts in the issue, asked to write blogs about their own changing and evolving opinions about the issue at hand and comment about blogs of other participants. In a sense, the participants will be asked to read through series of informative blogs by the experts and other participants, journal their own opinions, watch webcasts from the experts all in a stimulated and timed environment online. This is much like an online course offered by majority of the Universities across the nation. After a week long, intense, online training and information sharing, it is hoped that the participants will be just as likely to be informed about the issue as they would be had they been involved in the expensive original deliberative process. In the final stage of this process, they participants will again be polled using a Computer Assisted Self Interviewing (CASI) and be asked the original questions.

In this process, idea is pretty much the same as deliberative polling. This process will also measure how the public will react or think had they been better informed and closer to ideal citizens of a democratic nation. It will however greatly reduce the resource constrains introduced by having to organize and pay for thousands of people’s accommodating for a weekend. It will introduce some issues that are prevalent with using computers and internet such as exclusion of certain groups of people who do not own computers or internet or do not have access to it. But, other means such as telephone interviewing would exclude all the cell phone users who do not have home phone. Self administered mail-in surveys have a very small response rate and traditional deliberate polling are expensive.

Public opinion polls started out as means to serve a democratic state where everyone’s voices were heard. However, there are so many, millions of people in this state that its hard to get a consensus or even get an idea of how majority of these people really think. One way to do this, as the movie “Magic town” and the pollsters have discovered is to poll a sample or representative fraction of people. However, as we have learned throughout this course, to get a representative sample is problematic. In any scientific poll, researchers, via techniques like systematic random sampling or random digit dialing, can get a somewhat representative sample of the larger population. But to gain a truly representation sample is hard. People who are statically sampled might not necessarily be speaking for others, they are in a sense speaking only for themselves. Fishkin, argues that even if we did manage to get a perfect sample, their opinions might not be the best ones to take in order to make policies. The author contends that while public opinion is valued by the government officials and in theory used as a means which helps form new policies, they are based of off samples that are poorly measured and informed.