Well, this is what happens when a nation decides it's had enough of experts, and journalism is declared the enemy. The "elitist, out of touch lamestream media" are inevitably just going to throw their hands up and say "**** it, let's just ask Karen what she thinks".
Annoying as they are, the thing about vox pops is that they do provide an interesting historical archive of the views of 'common people' (who decide the general political view of a country). Looking back you also see that there are no new discussion topics under the sun.
I think the idea of vox pops is to show that an issue touches 'real' people, and that it's not just a topic that only newsrooms care about. In this sense, vox pops do, I think, serve a useful purpose. Used sparingly, and when reflecting a range of views, I think they're a helpful tool. Certainly they can be over-used and repetitive, and as an informed viewer it's frustrating when people don't seem to know what they're talking about, but I also think that that's useful to see too, sometimes.
Its more when they ask people and they come out with something that isn't even factually right and is misinformed, yet somehow it was good enough to make the cut.
I'm sure newsrooms deliberately try an get away with including the oddest people and oddest opinions as an internal challenge, either that or they can't wait to leave so ask the first 4 people and then go home
"I'm confused, How come you can't do X when you can do Y" when in some cases you can't do Y either, but they use it
Absolutely – and I think there needs to be an improvement in how they are used. However, I do think they have some value done right. And, again, I don't think every opinion needs to be 'informed' to be worth hearing. As frustrating as it is, it demonstrates that not everybody
is
clued up on a topic.
Vox Pops are useful even if you sometimes get very useless ones. It is probably an abbreviation of a latin phrase known as Vox Populi, which translates as “the voice of the people”, and given how a vox pop is used, its a pretty accurate thing. So despite people here saying how useless they can sometimes be, they are a great way of getting local opinions from those who ultimately decide who is in power (ie the MPs)
Vox Pops are useful even if you sometimes get very useless ones. It is probably an abbreviation of a latin phrase known as Vox Populi, which translates as “the voice of the people”, and given how a vox pop is used, its a pretty accurate thing. So despite people here saying how useless they can sometimes be, they are a great way of getting local opinions from those who ultimately decide who is in power (ie the MPs)
And looking at who our MPs are, it's hardly suprising vox pops are often so infuriating.