Serious question: how does "media on elections" disenfranchise voters? I would have thought that they usefully inform voters, or at least remind voters of the importance of voting.
In the case of Franchise a computer does an interview of one voter and then calculates who the president should be.
In real life, if 538 was perfect at simulating the election there would be no need to have the election.
The point of Insider Baseball is that ‘horse-race’ coverage and coverage that pretends to give you an insider view of the campaign as the candidates and their staff see it completely avoid any real discussion of who the voters are, what they really want, what really motivates them, what alternatives they really have, etc.
538 in perfect irony applies the techniques and terminology of sports betting to politics.
I believe there are simpler and more convincing explanations for polling errors that seemed consistently biased against Trump, but some people are happy to jump to far fetched conspiracy theories.
Aside from this, to influence opinions with sharing polling information, one just needs to change the question, or the audience, or both. "Should the US seek peaceful resolutions with Russia" will get a different answer than "Should Biden oppose Russia's military buildup on Ukraine's border". You can tailor the question to the answer, and have Americans either supporting or opposing abortion, or whatever.
Also, a poll of everyone will yield different results from a poll of, say, likely voters. You have to look to who is polled along with what is polled.
With these things done, there is little need to fudge the numbers, other polling organizations can ask the same question to the same demographic and get similar answers.
There have certainly been massive polling failures (and obvious push polling) in elections over the past decade that can be discussed rather than being dismissed for the sake of partisanship. The organizations who actually do the polling discuss these issues constantly without accusing each other of being deluded.
You can see this kind of thing in practice if you've ever been a non-white person in a redneck bar.
