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It is shown that the index to the Public Opinion Quarterly cannot be an objective record of the res that was done because it is dependent upon editorial decisions. It is pointed out that PO res'ers are concerned with issues that are salient to the time the res was undertaken. Examples from the index are presented to substantiate this. It is shown that not only is the res related to specific historical periods, but also the terminology which is used changes. A delineation of the types of perennially interesting res is made. G. Satt.

Addresses the issue of "quality" in public opinion research, arguing that conceptions of quality in public opinion are inextricably bound to broader conceptions of quality in democratic decision making, a complex process involving multiple phases & collective participants. Contradictions & ambiguities underlying conceptions of quality & traditional & newer methods for attaining quality in public opinion are discussed. 1 Table, 2 Figures, 86 References. Adapted from the source document.

The actual use of polling techniques by the federal government falls far short of what one eminent social scientist, Julian L. Woodward, foresees for the future. He says: "Sooner or later, the government itself will have to go into the polling field and provide both its administrators and its legislators with adequate and sound information on what the public thinks. Eventually this sort of information will become as necessary as census data and will be provided by an agency with a reputation for unbiased research equal to that now enjoyed by the present Census Bureau."While the potentialities of public opinion research in the government have only begun to be exploited, administrators and even legislators, who characteristically have been more hostile toward polling, have found methods of testing public opinion answerable to their needs. In accord with their purposes, they have used public opinion surveys to sample a small group of leaders, a large group, or the total population. They have been concerned also with content analysis of the press and of radio programs. The usefulness of attitude surveys was established particularly during the war and has continued since in a somewhat lesser degree.

Internet public opinion, an essential part of public opinion, attracts enormous academic research efforts in China. The research on internet public opinion, which involves a fusion of both social and natural sciences, requires both theoretical elaboration and empirical analysis. This article aims to assess the current situation of internet public opinion research in China by employing a bibliometric method to analyse 9,060 studies selected and collected from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). Based on the findings, the authors assess the overall situation of internet public research in China, and discuss the existing problems and emerging trends. (China/GIGA)

PO res is many things to many people: a business, a pol'al device, an instrument of propaganda, an art. It is also, however, a sci'fic endeavor. The difficulties of quantification in studying problems relating to society do not exclude them from the province of sci conceived as the systematic search for truth by the method of rational intelligence. Sci as a human soc activity cannot arbitrarily stop short of man & his essential S-cul environment. PO res should be viewed not as an independent sci, but rather as a specialized subarea of res. For this reason, opinion researchers should not be trained as such; we should rather train sociol'ts, psychol'ts, pol'al sci'ts, etc, with specialization in PO study. IPSA.