By Park Moo-jong
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"One of the most frequently spoken words among Koreans, particularly youngsters, during talks is "jinjja?" or "jeongmal?" meaning "really?"
For example, a mother in her late early 40s with a boy attending high school told her neighbor Tuesday, "Did you hear the news that all the schools will remain closed for two more weeks until April 6 (due to the coronavirus pandemic)?"
The neighbor, also a mother with a girl attending middle school, asked instinctively in return, "Really?"
Didn't the neighbor want to believe what she said? No. It was a matter of the linguistic habits of the people of today in the "age of distrust."
Many young people even jokingly use the word "real" from the Spanish football club name "Real Madrid," though in Spanish "real" means "royal."
People of today tend to doubt even government statistics alongside results of various public surveys conducted by authorized professional polling organizations and media outlets.
In particular, many people appear to be dubious of the outcome of various opinion polls about the approval rates of President Moon Jae-in and the various political parties ahead of the April 15 general election.
Even many lawmakers and candidates for the general election ask: "Really?"
The latest survey conducted by Gallup Korea, a leading pollster founded in 1979, showed that President Moon's approval rating rose by 2 percentage points to 44 percent in the first week of March, "thanks to the public's recognition of his administration's handling of the coronavirus spread."
Gallup Korea also found in a survey of 1,001 respondents that 43 percent of them want the ruling party to be victorious in the election. Those who hoped opposition candidates would be elected also accounted for 43 percent.
In comparison, Realmeter, which rose to become a frontrunner in the business after the inauguration of the Moon government in May 2017, said Moon's approval rating was 47.2 percent in the second week of March.
The polling firm also said that the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's approval rating a month ahead of the election registered 41.5 percent, compared to 32.1 percent for the opposition United Future Party, formerly the Liberty Korea Party.
Many eligible voters question why the popularity rate of the ruling party is so high considering what they think in their daily lives.
What's the problem with the public polls?
Experts attribute it to the "aggressive" participation by ardent supporters of President Moon dubbed "Moon-ppa," compared to the somewhat passive attitude of conservatives who are against Moon's liberals.
By the way, the basics in conducting an opinion poll are objectivity and credibility. Yet, the surveys these days are suspected of being problematic in the terms of the way they question voters.
Polling firms used to be mainly dependent upon landlines, although most voters now use cellphones. The poll through landlines tended to exclude younger voters using smart devices; and some people use their landlines only to access the internet, and only answer calls to their mobile phones.
Another problematic factor with public surveys is the character of Koreans. Korean voters have been traditionally reluctant to reveal which party or candidate they support. Korean voters tend not to disclose what they have in mind.
The controversially inaccurate exit polls in the previous presidential and parliamentary elections testify to why it is so hard for people to trust public opinion polls.
A remark by American journalist Grantland Rice (1880-1954) may be a good lesson: "A wise person makes his or her own decisions and an ignorant person follows public opinion."
What the parties, either ruling or opposition, must keep deep in their minds ahead of the election is not to mistake the voices of their loyal supporters for the opinion of the general public.
There must be a sweeping reform of the current public polling formula, which is increasingly losing public confidence, in the coming new legislature.
Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.
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