Some results tend to be ignored for not reaching majority status. They shouldn't.

Gabriela Perdomo - "Most", "many" and "a majority" tend to be the headlines when it comes to reporting on public opinion. Many important numbers, and equally significant information, are lost for not fitting those standards.

Everyone would agree that racial tension with Muslims living in Western countries is one of the most important questions pollsters need to ask about these days—and they do. But because their findings are not particularly scandalous—most numbers have so far been positive—they are usually cast aside; yet some of them contain sensitive data. The United Kingdom is a key player in the so-called war on terrorism and one of two European countries that have been attacked by people either connected to or inspired by al-Qaeda.

A January poll by YouGov found a third of respondents in Britain think "very many young Muslims are alienated from British society and represent a significant danger." An additional 34 per cent believe the country cannot generally live in harmony with the Muslim minority. The headlines on these results were mostly dedicated to the two-thirds of respondents who claim "a small number of radical young Muslims present a danger to Britain but the overwhelming majority are peaceful and law-abiding." But one would think that, although a minority, those expressing concern should be acknowledged as well.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project revealed last year that in most Western countries a significant portion of the population has an unfavourable view of Muslims. They might not be the majority, but they are not a bunch to ignore. A fifth of British respondents have a negative view of Muslims; a quarter of Americans also has a negative attitude towards them, and the number reaches 35 per cent in France.

The same study found that while people in most of the Western world believe democracy is "not just for the West and can work well in most Muslim countries", an important number of respondents disagrees. 37 per cent of respondents in the United States think "democracy is a Western way of doing things and would not work in most Muslim countries"; in Britain and France, 30 and 41 per cent of respondents, respectively, think alike. The findings are particularly interesting considering that a vast majority of Muslim respondents living in Western countries and in Muslim countries actually believe democracy could work well anywhere—so the large number of skeptics, even though not a majority, are non-Muslim westerners.

In November last year, an Angus Reid Strategies global poll found sensitive data on attitudes towards suicide bombings. One third of respondents in Lebanon think suicide bombings can be a legitimate form of political action. Those interviewed in Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not far behind. Strikingly, 22 per cent of respondents also agree in Japan; 18 per cent in Australia, 17 per cent in France, and 16 per cent in South Africa and Mexico. Overall, the study found at least 8 per cent of respondents in 20 different countries, including Canada and the United States, feel this way about suicide bombings.

On a different subject also related to terrorism, 29 per cent of respondents in 25 different countries believe terrorists pose such an extreme threat that governments should now be allowed to use some degree of torture if it may gain information that saves innocent lives, according to a poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes. That is, a quarter of 26,407 people interviewed around the world—certainly not a negligible number.

These are just a few examples of forgotten numbers that hold important messages. The habit of scanning for the largest groups is affecting the way editors assess public opinion numbers. In this case, numbers in the middle grids containing vital information on sensitive subjects, such as terrorism and racial profiling, were under-reported for that reason. The public deserves a chance to reach its own conclusions about those facts deemed "secondary."

Archive Search

Search the Angus Reid Global Monitor Politics In Depth archive.