【英语生活】揭开伪调查面纱

This is the age of the bogus survey. I woke up recently to the news that 95 per cent of children in Britain had been victims of crime. Of course they had. From a legal perspective, pushing a classmate or taking a pencil without the intention of returning it is a crime. School playgrounds are hotbeds of crime and always have been.The difference between the bogus survey and real research is that real research has the objective of yielding new information, while bogus surveys are designed to generate publicity. The organisation that had undertaken this bogus survey – I forbear from mentioning its name – did not disguise that it had done so in order to draw attention to the problem of abuse of children.

Statistics about the incidence of real criminal activity against and among children are hard to come by and hard to interpret. We do not really know whether things are getting better or worse, or by how much – at least not without careful research and analysis, which would be hard to explain on television. Programme producers will not ask you to appear to spell out these complexities, but will allow you to horrify viewers and listeners with alarming news.

Public relations professionals understand these triggers, to such an extent that commissioning a bogus survey is now a standard element in the pitch they present to potential clients and conducting these surveys is an increasingly large part of the activity of market research organisations.

The agencies appreciate, although they are normally too polite to spell it out to their clients, that Universal Widgets is not a very interesting company, widgets are not a very interesting product, and Nigel Snooks, the chief executive, is not a very interesting man. But a survey that shows that two-thirds of men have contemplated hitting their wives with a widget will produce many media slots in which Mr Snooks of Universal Widgets can recount the findings.

There is even a term for this kind of activity. It is called “thought leadership”. That term illustrates the problem. It probably does not matter much that the bogus survey is used to generate spurious news. The danger is that opinion polls designed to produce eye-catching answers displace serious thought and analysis. The organisation that announced that 95 cent of children had been victims of crime judged, correctly, that its survey better served its needs than serious research into the problems with which it was concerned, that had not been done.

The study of business is afflicted by confusion between the results of a survey of what people think about the world and a survey of what the world is really like. At another recent meeting I heard a platform speaker announce that 40 per cent of books would be electronically published by 2020. A pesky academic asked exactly what this number meant and what evidence it was based on. The speaker assured the audience that the number had been obtained in a survey by eminent consultants of the opinions of the industry's thought leaders.

I imagine most of the thought leaders had no more idea than anyone else what the question implied, or what the answer was, and did not devote more than the briefest consideration to their response, so I am not surprised that the median answer was close to a half. If you want to know the future of publishing, you will learn more by peering into a crystal ball. It will at least give you time to think.

Newspapers, broadcasters and consultants will start to distinguish bogus surveys from substantive knowledge only when their audience demonstrates that it knows the difference. Academics and think-tanks need to be reminded that generating publicity is not a legitimate research objective. The column in The Week magazine called “what the scientists are saying”, a compendium of silly claims from scientists trying to attract attention, is as embarrassing to the cause of real science as Private Eye's Pseuds' Corner is to real literature.

When you are asked for your opinion in your role as thought leader, put the phone down. You will be serving the public interest as well as saving your time.

这是一个“伪调查”泛滥的年代。最近惊闻95%的英国儿童曾是犯罪行为的受害人。当然如此。从法律的角度看，推搡一位同学和在不想归还原物的情况下借用铅笔，都是犯罪。学校操场是犯罪的温床，而且一直以来就是这样。



伪调查和真研究的区别在于，真研究的目的是提供新的信息，而伪调查的目的则是为了吸引公众的注意力。进行这项伪调查的组织（我不想说出它的名字），没有假装自己的目的是为了让公众关注虐童行为。





儿童之间和针对儿童的真正犯罪活动，其统计数据非常难以得到，而且难以诠释。我们并不真正了解情况是否正在好转或恶化，或是好转或恶化的程度——至少，在没有经过仔细调查和分析前是如此的，而这是难以在电视上（向公众）解释的。节目制作人不会让你到节目上去说明这些问题的复杂性，但会允许你用耸人听闻的新闻去惊吓观众与听众。





公共关系方面的专业人员知道其中的玄机，以至于委托进行一个伪调查已经成为向潜在顾客兜售服务时的必备程序，而这些调查的执行已经在市场调查组织的业务中占据了越来越大的份额。





尽管调查机构通常过于礼貌，不会对客户说这些，但它们认为，Universal Widgets不是非常有趣的公司，该公司生产的无名小器械也不是非常有趣，其首席执行官奈杰尔•斯努克斯(Nigel Snooks)更不是一个非常有趣的人。但一项调查声称，三分之二的男士曾企图用一个小器械殴打他们的妻子。该调查吸引了许多媒体的注意，让Universal Widgets的斯努克斯可以在媒体上描述这一调查结果。



这种行为甚至有一种术语，称为“思想领袖”(thought leadership)。该术语说明了这一问题。这可能与伪调查用来制造假新闻没有太大关系。问题是，旨在制造轰动效应的民意调查转移了严肃的思考和分析。宣布95%的儿童都是犯罪受害者的机构正确作出了判断：相对于就相关问题进行严肃研究（事实没有进行），这个调查更好地满足了需求。





有关人们对世界看法的调查，和真正的世界是什么样的调查，两者结果相混淆，影响了商业研究。在最近的一次会议上，我听到一位演讲者宣布，到2020年前，40%的书籍将电子化出版。一位讨厌的学者问这个数字意味着什么，证据何在。演讲者向观众保证，数据来自一项调查，调查的作者是著名的咨询顾问，调查对象是业内思想领袖。





我想，对于问题的含义或应该是什么答案，大多数思想领袖知道得并不比其他人多，而且对于自己的回答，他们也不会拿出哪怕长一点的时间来考虑。所以，一般的回答都是半瓶子醋，我也不觉得奇怪。如果你想知道未来的出版业，还不如去盯着一个水晶球看，那样得到的答案倒会更多。因为，那至少会让你有时间思考。



只有当受众表明自己知道两者区别的时候，报纸、广播电台和咨询公司才会开始从大量知识中甄别伪调查。需要提醒学术界人士和智囊机构，产生宣传效果并不是一个合理的研究目的。《周末》(The Week)杂志上有个叫“科学家如是说”(what the scientists are saying)的专栏，罗列了哗众取宠的科学家们的各种蠢话。这个专栏之于真正的科学事业，就像《侦探》(Private Eye)杂志的“虚假角落”(Pseuds' Corner)专栏之于真正的文学事业一样令人尴尬。





如果有人把你作为思想领袖，询问你的意见，你还是把电话撂下吧。你这样做才符合公众利益，同时也节省了自己的时间。

译者/何黎