Controversial Effects of Polling on

The idea of public opinion is inseparable from tech-niques, instruments, and institutions related to the ex-pression and representation of opinions. Regardless of whether the notion of public opinion presupposed the public as a corporate social entity or merely as a (statisti-cal) aggregation of individuals, or whether it considered public opinion as originating from rational discussion or merely as a widespread diffusion of elite opinion, even by coercion, it was always assumed that public opinion is (at least) publicly expressed opinion that represents the (majority of) people or the citizenry. Since early modern times, public opinion was typically institutionalised in three distinct forms, but none of them genuinely represented an ideally defined public: 1. Parliament. If anything, parliament may generall