pollaganda
n.— «Pollaganda is outcome-based opinion samples (polling instruments designed to generate a preferential outcome) based on prior-opinion indoctrination or cultivation by the media, the results of which are then used to manipulate public opinion further by advancing the perception that a particular opinion on an issue has majority support, and then presenting this “data” as if it were “news.”» —“Pollaganda: Media polls as instruments of propaganda” by Mark M. Alexander Townhall.com May 12, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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I think this definition fails to adequately portray the most basic fact (and danger) of pollaganda, the method in which the question is asked.
Pollaganda’s greatest weapon is the way in which the polling “question” is phrased. Within the phasing of the question one can easilly get the kind of response that one desires – and whomever may realize the impossibility of answering as to when they “stopped” beating their wife and thus refuses a response is simply not included within the data of those who were “polled and responded”.
mnuez