I wouldn't say I think that they're more sophisticated but conducting a telephone sample, or doing a vox-pop on street corners with a TV camera requires more ef

I wouldn't say I think that they're more sophisticated but conducting a telephone sample, or doing a vox-pop on street corners with a TV camera requires more effort than just typing a hashtag into a searchbox and pulling out a few responses. I think the lower friction of skimming social media, plus the added pressure of having more air-time / articles to fill means there's an over-reliance on it in a way that there wasn't before.