From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The "
Worm
" is a
market research
analysis tool developed by the
Roy Morgan
statistics company (known than as Roy Morgan Research, who called it "The Reactor"), with the purpose of gauging an audience's reaction to some visual stimuli over some time period. The name "worm" describes its visual appearance ? as a line graph snaking up or down, usually depicted on TV during live political debates
Background
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Each member of the audience firstly fills out a questionnaire, used to describe the composition of the audience. Then, each member is given a control device (such as a dial or keypad) with which they select their feelings towards the vision or stimuli (for example, whether they regard the comments currently being made by a speaker favourably or unfavourably). This dial is checked centrally three times per second, and as the audience reacts differently over time, the collective feelings of the audience are gathered.
Australian Federal Elections
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The "worm" has been used in the
televised
political debates
in
Australian federal elections
, including those between then Australian prime minister
John Howard
and then-leader of the opposition
Kevin Rudd
in 2007
[1]
and between prime minister
Julia Gillard
and opposition leader
Tony Abbott
in 2010.
Internationally
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In the first UK general election debate on 15 April 2010 between Labour Prime Minister
Gordon Brown
, Conservative leader
David Cameron
and Liberal Democrat leader
Nick Clegg
, "the worm" was used in certain segments.
[2]
A study published in March 2011 suggests that the worm may influence voters.
[3]
In New Zealand, the worm has been controversially credited with increasing the support for
United Future
leader
Peter Dunne
in the 2002 election.
[4]
References
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External links
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