Ashley Acord- Tactic #1 S.A.F.E. Push-Polling

Ashley I. Acord (i.d. 106861956)

Dr. Kubal

Social Movements M/W 3:30- 4:45pm

Push Polling: Tactic #1 S.A.F.F.E.

 The push polling tactic was very interesting to say the least. We were asked to create a survey surrounding different opinions of our group's chosen issue of environment. The push polling was an hour at a time and we used a survey engine called "cadi shack" that Dr. Kubal provided for us.

 I was able to get over 5 respondents within the hour of push pulling I did. The first thirty minutes were the most difficult to get people to agree to taking the survey. A majority of my attempted calls seemed to return busy signals. This was frustrating and I started to wonder why there wasn't anyone answering their phone. Mind you, my calls were done from 10am-11am therefore; I would imagine that most people would be working during this time. Regardless of the rough start, I eventually got through to a few respondents who agreed to take the survey. 

            I made an assumption before starting my push pulling tactic that most of the people who would be respondents would be older retired individuals. I found that this was valid to an extent, but there were a few younger mothers that I encountered that were in their 30's. I also made the assumption that any participant that would be younger than age 50, would be less inclined to speak to me than someone older than 50. I made this assumption on the grounds that older people don't get a lot of attention in our society and a small amount of people listen to what they have to say. I find this to derive from the understanding that the elderly are out of touch with our world today because of cultural lag. On the contrary, I noticed that this was an inaccurate assumption and my findings showed more responses and agreements to take the survey from younger people that were under 4o years of age.

            I also made an assumption before administering the push polling technique, that I would only get negative responses. After the first couple calls, I had agreed upon this assumption all together.  The first two people I spoke with were rude about the idea of saving the environment all together. They both strangely enough felt that it was a made up issue in general. One of them responded with, "I think that I all just bullshit anyways. Our world runs in cycles, we're meant to destroy it, and then it will just start all over." I asked them to elaborate on this subject, and they said that they didn't want to. I was irritated with this respondent, because I feel if you have such a polar belief of something, then you should be able to have at least a couple justifications in feeling so extreme about your opinion. In my opinion, if you can't back it up with reasoning, your passion on the topic is worthless.

            The one call that I really enjoyed having was with a 34 year old woman who was busy taking care of her 2 kids at home when I called, but still agreed to take the survey because she cared about the topic. She said that many people in her family had fallen victim to asthma issues and that her younger son was one of them. She was very helpful and explained her story in depth.  

Her young son had had an inhaler since he was 4 years old, and would get coughing fits that would make him vomit they were so intense. She said that they lived near the freeway and she felt that his asthma was partially consequential of this fact. She said that besides bad air quality, she has really tried hard to recycle all things possible and encourage her family members also. She tries to car pool to work with fellow teachers as she is a teacher at an elementary school here in Fresno. This young lady's account of poor health being contributed by bad air quality was prevalent in the responses from others when asked this question in the survey. In fact, 72% of the 25 respondents of this question also said that someone in their family or group of close friends had also been affected negatively by the bad air pollution.

            The actual results from the survey are the following. When told, "For one of my classes, we're asking adults to complete a brief opinion survey about community issues.  Would you please consider completing an interview with me?" forty-six people responded; 67% said yes, and 33% said no. The next question was explaining where their information would go and how it would be used and if they agreed to continue; now only 37 people responded with 73% saying yes, and 27% saying no. When asked how they agreed with the statement, ""I favor the air quality where I reside today," A majority of respondents disagreed by a percentage of 48. When asked if air pollution had affected their health, I was surprised to see that out of 25 respondents, there was 56% that said no, and 44% that said yes. I was happy to see that when asked, "Did you know that exposure to traffic-related air pollutants was associated with respiratory symptoms in children?" that out of 25 respondents 72% said yes. I was also enthused by the response from people on the significance of climate change being an issue; with 41% it is very significant, and 32% saying that it was significant. When asked what we should do to counteract global warming on a community based level, respondents' most common response was reduce, reuse, and recycle. 

            Over all, I thought this was a great learning experience. Yes, the hang ups and irritated grumpy people were a pain in the butt, but getting some real feedback about the poor quality of air issue in Fresno was good for me. It helped me want to be more conscious of my carbon footprint on the earth and I have been trying harder and harder ever since.