The Sun's 'sympathy for jihadis' poll takes tabloid simplification too far

 


The Sun has come under fire this week for its coverage of a "shock poll", which according to its front page showed "1 in 5 Brit Muslims' sympathy for jihadis". Twitter came alive with anger, questions were raised about the poll's methodology and Survation, the company which carried out the survey, appeared to distance itself from the paper's presentation of the results.

With echoes of contentious tabloid splashes of the past, the latest controversy has revived debates about the potentially damaging impact of populist newspapers on public discourse.

It is certainly true that The Sun's interpretation of the poll requires scrutiny – although some of the criticisms have been as simplistic as The Sun's front page. For instance, claims that the survey was unrepresentative because it only questioned 1,000 people could apply to almost any opinion poll. Survation is a member of the British Polling Council and its methodology on this occasion was identical to a raft of similar polls in the past 12 months, none of which have caused such a hullaballoo.

The more fertile ground for querying the poll is to be found around the wording of the question which led to The Sun's striking assertion. Respondents were asked to say which of a number of statements was closest to their view as regards "young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria": "I have a lot of sympathy with [them]"; "I have some sympathy…"; "I have no sympathy…"; or "Don't know". Some have noted that the question didn't specifically refer to Isis – but in the context of the other questions contained in the survey it seems unlikely that anyone would have concluded that they were not being asked about British Muslims fighting for that group.