Course talk:POLI380JAN2011Owen/Survey/Media

It seems like we’ve all reached the consensus that there should be some sort of question about where people get there information from, so maybe we should use this thread as a place to discuss the wording of that question.

Which of the following do you use most frequently to obtain information about politics?

1. Print-based sources 2. Online news sources 3. Television 4. Social media websites ...... anything else????

This could also lead to a question about how often survey respondents use these sources so that we could analyze if increased exposure to certain types media actually influences peoples opinions.

What do you guys think?

The questions that Marie Josee mentioned:

How often do you participate in social media ex/ Facebook, twitter - 1. Frequently 2. Regularly 3. Sometimes 4. Rarely 5. Never

How often do you participate in political matters/protests through social media ex/ online petitions, facebook groups, organizing protest events online 1. Frequently 2. Regularly 3. Sometimes 4. Rarely 5. Never

and

In the years you have been eligible to vote how many elections have you voted in 1. All of them 2. More than half 3. Less than half 4. None

would probably flow pretty nicely from there too

For source of media I'd add radio to the list of options; the CBC gets a lot of play. Do you think it's worth differentiating between Canadian and American television? I've got at least one relative living in Vancouver who watches nothing but Fox News...

1. Print (e.g. Vancouver Sun, National Post, Metro) 2. Online news services (e.g. cbc.ca, vancouversun.com, thetyee.ca) 3. Canadian television (e.g. CBC, Global) 4. American television (e.g. CNN, Fox, King 5) 5. Social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook)

For how often they use social media, howsabout we make it even clearer? Something like:

1. Constantly 2. Every day 3. A few times a month 4. Almost never, but I have accounts 5. Never, I don't even have accounts 6. Prefer not to answer

I'd theoretically prefer something similar for rates of participation, but I'm almost not sure how best to measure it save self-identification. But if we are just asking for how active they consider themselves to be politically, why don't we make it super clear, something like:

How active do you consider yourself to be politically?

1. Very 2. Somewhat 3. About average 4. Not very 5. Totally uninvolved 6. Don't know/prefer not to say

Do we have to ask about voting history, or is that likely to be in the basic package of questions Dr. Owen includes? (or another group's maybe?)

Is our focus on political participation internationally, domestically, and/or locally?

I like Ryan's specific question about sources of media

I'm not sure that the social media question is relevant. We only have 5 questions and we have to think about what whether or not the replies, in regards to how much people use social media, is going to help us with the theories we have.. Unless we have a specific motive for answering this question. In that case, we should outline our theory.

I am in the same boat as Kristen we need to figure out if we are focusing our political participation internationally, domestically, and / or locally. In my opinion I think we should focus our survey domestically as there is more research to draw from at the national level then the local level. Once we are done this we can start tailoring our questions towards this. What do you guys think we should focus on?

I think we should focus on BC politics, if anything. Though federal might be easier? But either way, we should choose one.

If we're pursuing social media as a driver of a new sort of political participation, it's worth asking about, otherwise, yeah, probably not a good use of a question.

I am also in favour of focusing on BC politics since we are interviewing BC residents, and some prominent provincial media figures are involved in the leadership races. I don't think we need to include the American news sources if we do focus on media and BC politics. I think the social media question is mostly covered by the first question asking where they get their news sources from.

So, we will specifically focus on BC Politics. And thus through the magic of copy and pasting:

Which of the following do you use most frequently to obtain information in regards to BC provincial politics? or Which of the following do you use most frequently to obtain information in regards to BC provincial politics? You may choose more than one.

1. Print (e.g. Vancouver Sun, National Post, Metro) 2. Online news services (e.g. cbc.ca, vancouversun.com, thetyee.ca) 3. Canadian television (e.g. CBC, Global) 4. Social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) 5. Other (Political Party websites)

(Should we include that they can choose more than one? Or do we only want one answer? I say more than one answer.)

Since we are focusing on BC politics, Kristen I like the survey question you posted earlier : In regards to the most recent, past provincial election, did you: A) Vote B) Not Vote C) Were Not Eligible D) Prefer Not to Answer. I think this is a great starter questions because right of the bat we will be able to see that are respondents had some knowledge or interests about politics. This is a good basic questions because if the people voted in the past we would know that they were somewhat aware politically. This could be a good segway into more specific questions regarding media effect and how it effected there political turnout. But I also want to note that just because the respondent says he/she did not vote, it does not mean that his answers to the rest of the questions will be invalid, just that we as surveyors will know different ways that conclusions can be drawn after finishing the survey.

If you want to make changes, copy and paste the question I have just posted, make your wording changes in Bold type, explain your changes, and we can "vote" on the version of the question that best suits our purpose.

Kristen, I'm pretty satisfied with the question you've written, but would "word of mouth (e.g. family, friends, etc.)" not be a good option? True, "word of mouth" wouldn't traditionally be considered a medium, but I do think it's relevant if the goal is finding out where people get their political news (and consequently, opinions) from. And of course, word of mouth does shape the way people think about politics, arguably more so than any of the other options. I guess the question comes down to whether you consider word of mouth a form of media...

Also, a note on the "Other" category: I think it might be better to omit "(political party websites)" in favour of "(Please specify)" followed by a space to... well, specify. However, adding a category that allows respondents to indicate that they get their information from a political party's website/meetings/etc. may be worthwhile.

I do think respondents should be able to choose more than one. I think very few people get their information from just one medium and many would probably have difficulty deciding which is their dominant source of information.

Definitely agree on "please specify" for the "Other" option.

I think we should include American television even if we focus on BC politics; just because a news source doesn't speak specifically about BC issues doesn't mean that it might not have an influence on how its viewers perceive those issues. It's an important part, I'd imagine, of the cloud of political opinions news-watchers surround themselves with.

Mind you, I almost wonder if it might not be worth breaking it into two questions... Question one is simply where the respondent gets their news (check all that apply), question two is where they turn for BC news (giving them a chance to say "I don't follow BC politics" which I think is an important thing to capture).

What do you all think? Worth two questions? (part of this is that I'm genuinely interested in the question of what types of media people consume generally for its own merits, but I might be alone in this)

[edit: I've punched both these proposals up on the main page, just to get the ball rolling]

I like the idea of it being two separate questions. These two questions would be great to mark the start of the survey as they are general and easy to answer while getting to the point quickly. After these it would be easy to flow into other topics of political participation of the individual without it being too jumpy.

I think the survey is meant to be done over the telephone though, so the question may need some rewording with "check all that apply". Perhaps after asking where they obtain their news, we could just ask to specify which company or news organization to avoid listing too many names? "Where do you receive your news 1. Newspapers 2. Dailies 3. The internet 4. Canadian television 5. American television 6. Social media 7. Other - Please specify your choice"

I like the questions you posted Ryan! I think the next one should be something about how frequently you use your preferred media selection. Like:

Based on your answer to the previous question, how often do you use this form of media? 1. everyday 2. 2-3 times a week 2. once a week 3. once a month 4. less than once a month (these options might need to be refined a little - can someone help me out with that one?)

By asking this question we can analyze a lot of different things like if increased media exposure leads to increased voter participation, or if certain types of media are used more often than others.

I've added this to the list of questions on the main page, feel free to edit

Hey guys,

The questions look good, but I think there are some issues with question four. First, there's just a little technical problem - the options are numbered "1. 2. c. d. e. d.". I've changed that to "1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.".

Also, I think the problem of not being eligible to vote in certain elections is a bit irksome and makes the responses sort of difficult to quantify. I propose we change the question to the following:

"Of the BC Provincial elections you have been eligible to vote in, how many have you voted in?

1. All elections 2. Most elections 3. Some elections 4. None"

I think that will give us a more accurate picture of how active respondents are in terms of voting. Let me know what you think.

Also, if we do keep the current formulation, I think we should remove "prefer not to answer" and instead simply inform respondents at the beginning of the survey that they may choose to not answer a question they don't feel comfortable answering.

Lastly, I think a good fifth question would address respondents' perceptions of how media effects voting behaviour. By asking how media effects voting behaviour in general, we're more likely to get an accurate gauge than by asking how media effects their voting behaviour. I've added a very rough version of how I think this question should be formulated, but please feel free to change (or delete, as the case may be) it as you see fit.

A couple things:

I think that we need to keep the "prefer not to answer" in all of our questions for data reasons. When we're entering in our data we need to have an answer for everyone so that our results are messed up. So, if someone prefers not to answer, we need to keep track of that. In all of the surveys I've participated in at UBC, if my memory serves me well, there is almost always a "prefer not to answer" choice.

Also, I think we need to work on the wording of the voting question. How are we going to know if someone didn't vote because they didn't want to or because they were not eligible. For example, I am not eligible to vote in BC because I am from out of province. I would not be able to vote in any elections, however, I still consider myself to be politically informed and active. Can we use the other question I proposed in place of this one? In regards to the most recent, past provincial election, did you: A) Vote B) Not Vote C) Were Not Eligible D) Prefer Not to Answer.

Lastly, I don't understand our motive behind asking the respondents if they think media affects voting behaviour. I feel like societal discourse has taught us to believe that media affects politics directly. The purpose of our survey is to prove (as best as we can) whether or not this is true. How does everyone else feel?

Well, if our goal is to see if media effects politics directly, public perception of the effect media has should at least be something worth looking at. As I said above, I'm really not at all adamant about having the fifth question I wrote included. Feel free to delete if a better question comes up (we are supposed to have 5, no?).

As for "prefer not to answer" - it won't skew data if this response isn't included. If somebody chooses not to answer, you can just enter a null response when compiling data. I've personally only rarely seen "prefer not to answer" on a survey. What's more, I don't really think asking somebody if they voted is terribly personal - at least hardly more personal than asking them how often they use media. All that said, it's a pretty minor issue; including "prefer not to answer" doesn't really bother me. If "prefer not to answer" is an option for question 4, though, somebody will have to edit it "prefer not to answer" for other questions as well.

Finally, I like Kristen's formulation of the 4th question. It seems the least troublesome.

I agree that we keep "prefer not answer" as an option, although voting behaviour is not that a personal thing. There might be few people who are not willing to tell and incase of the situation that respondents choose an option that they don't really want to choose in fact. That would undermine the truthness of our data.

With regard to the purpose of the research, it is not only to "prove" the colleration between the media and voting turnout, but it would also be interesting to see in what ways are the related.(e.g. what kind of media is most effective in sparking people's interests and participation in politics). This kind of question has practical implication for political compaign.

With regard to the Question that Kristen proposed: how often do you use this form of media? 1. everyday 2. 2-3 times a week 2. once a week 3. once a month 4. less than once a month, I think we might modify the options as the following: 1.everyday 2.3-5 times a week 3. 2-3 times a week 4. once a week 5. less than once a week 6. Never We'd better to spread to options that everyone is able to find the options that most accurately reflect the reality. What do you guys think?

You raise a lot of good points Kristen. I do like your question, and it fits much better. Feel free to edit it in and take mine out.

Kristen I like your idea of changing the answers to the question "In regards to the most recent, past provincial election, did you: A) Vote B) Not Vote C) Were Not Eligible D) Prefer Not to Answer." For the respondents it would be hard for them to identify the date during the survey as I am sure many will have forgot what year they voted. I also think we should pick between questions 1 and 2 because in my opinion they are basically the same question worded differently. I also think we need a more general first question about general political activeness/awareness before going into more specific questions.

Aaron has a good point about questions 1 and 2, they do seem too similar and we are limited to so few questions. I'm leaning toward keeping question 2, because it's more specific to BC and therefore ties in better with the question about voter turnout. What about a question measuring other forms of political participation as well? Or are we focusing just on voter turnout?

Like something along the lines of, in the past year (or whatever time frame we decide on) have you: A) signed a petition B) attended a protest and/or political rally C) joined an political group using social media D) joined a political party (select all that apply)

Or if we want to measure frequency of political participation we could use the question Jennifer suggested above instead: How often do you participate in political matters/protests through social media ex/ online petitions, facebook groups, organizing protest events online 1. Frequently 2. Regularly 3. Sometimes 4. Rarely 5. Never

What do you guys think?

Fair enough, I think it's useful to keep general media consumption separate from those who follow BC politics, myself, but am (obviously) prepared to be over-ruled; certainly I hear that with only five questions we've got to think about bang for buck. I was thinking that it might be useful to us to capture how people follow news generally, but differentiate them from people who follow BC news specifically, and indeed those who follow the news but don't follow provincial stuff (e.g. me :P So maybe I'm biased as to the significance of that portion of the population).

On that note, added "don't really follow" to both questions for now, it's obviously a super important thing to capture. We should find out if the survey is written or given over the telephone; if it's the latter we should winnow down the options on those one/two to keep them manageable (the "daily" option I added kinda on a whim, because it occurred to me that I'd expect rather different behaviour from a Metro reader than a Globe and Mail reader, but ultimately I don't think it's that important a distinction).

Turnout's important, but is it all we want to capture? Political participation seems worth trying for too.

I think the "in the past year have you..." formulation (though I think it should be longer... three years?) is better than "how often do you..." since it allows us to differentiate between different types of activity in a single question, and doesn't rely on subjective interpretations of frequency.

I agree with Aaron that given the limited number of questions we should choose between questions one and two as the distinction between the two doesn't lead to a clear broader point. Having done so, we've established the source of media, the frequency of media use, and the potential link between frequency and voter turnout. At this point I think our decision becomes whether we want to use the remaining two questions to solidify the link between media use and turnout and reach a specific answer, or broaden our approach in the last two questions. Personally, I am inclined to broaden it simply to achieve potentially more interesting results. I like the idea voiced by Ryan among others to approach political participation. A 4th question could provide a list of outlets for political participation (Online, rallies, petitions, fundraisers etc) and then the 5th question could establish the frequency of participation.

I would propose something along the lines of: 4. Which of the following forms of political activity have you participated in? A: Rallies/Protests B: Fundraisers C: Handouts/Information sharing D: Petitions E: Other (please specify) F: None

5. If you answered A - E in the previous question, how often do you take part in political activities? A: Once a week or more B: Once a month or more C: Once a year or more D: Once or twice in your lifetime

Andrew I like your idea about the 4th question providing a list of outlets for political participation "4. Which of the following forms of political activity have you participated in? A: Rallies/Protests B: Fundraisers C: Handouts/Information sharing D: Petitions E: Other (please specify) F: None." Although for the 5th question could we maybe ask the respondent directly, do you think your political activity has made you more incline to vote? A. Agree b. somewhat agree c. neutral d. disagree. e. strongly disagree. f. prefer not to answer.

I changed question number four as I felt we had reached a consensus to do such.

I like your first question Andrew.

I added in Nathans questions, and I did not delete Ryans first questions. I will leave it up to him to do. In regards to Fatouhs 5th questions it does not fit in the 5th spot should this be closer to the new first question (old 2nd question)?

Deleted the old first question, since there seems to be consensus there, renumbered everything else but didn't make any other changes. I think Andrew Nathan's proposal for the participation questions are definitely on the right track. Do we mind that it might capture people who go to a political rally every weekend and people who change their facebook profile pic to the cause de jour every week as being equally politically active?

The fourth question looks good, I just have a concern about the wording. What's included under "handouts/information sharing", does that include facebook status updates or tweets?

I think that "information sharing" is too broad a term. I think that we should specify exactly what category facebook and twitter activity would be in, as they are obviously quite popular media outlets. If we don't include these under "handouts/information sharing," then people may include it under "other" and this would complicate our survey. Perhaps we could just add it to the current term: "handouts/social media: twitter, myspace, facebook, etc."

I think differentiating between Canadian and American television is a very good idea. If we are going to analyze the effect media coverage has on voter turnout, it will probably be simpler to study the effects on a single countries electoral cycle, and then we could make broader comparisons between the two countries afterward if we like.

Also, we may want to be cautious about focusing too much on social media, as oppose to all forms of media, as I know a lot of people who are politically inclined but use facebook socially, and there isn't necessarily a connection between the two.

That's definitely a good point, but we can specify in the question for those who use social media for political purposes, i.e., advocating, learning, etc.

Is there another way we can ask about how active people are in politics? I'm not sure if peoples perception of themselves would be honest and accurate?

By that I mean general questions asking if they active in politics, they might be embarrassed or have different perceptions on what it means to be active in politics. If we can have a more specific question on whether they have participated in some these actions, it will be easier to get an accurate answer.

Marie you bring a up a good point, the general question you talk about should be our first question, as this will give us a good indicator if our respondents are politically involved at all.

In order to make a well-founded assessment of this research question, it would be safe to analyze a ten[ish]-year period. Since media has evolved exponentially in the last ten years, this would give us a clear view of the situation. In order to do so, however, we would need to target some people that have been eligible to vote within the last ten years. By doing so, we could try to correlate an increase in the levels of media coverage from (given that part of my hypothesis is that media coverage increases as we near the present era, due to an increase in popularity and number of social media outlets [i.e. Facebook and Twitter]) and see if there is also an increase in the voter turnout/political participation. This would allow us to assess our research question and would allow us to display and organize our information in a nice time-series graph. Assuming that we are measuring the voter turnout in the last few BC elections, here is a question that we could potentially use.

A) Did you vote in any of the following BC elections? Check all those that apply. 1. 1997 2. 2001 3. 2005 4. 2009

And then we could also ask the questions on media coverage/sources within the same context… For example:

B) How do you get your news? C) Has there been an increase in the availability of the news (on cable or on the internet) within the last decade? D) Are you more aware of political issues than you were in the past? E) Does that push you towards or away from participating in politics?

I really like the idea of asking about which elections people voted in. Wording-wise I would put it something more like:

Which of the following BC elections have you voted in? a. 1997 b.2001 c.2005 d.2009 e. None of the above

I think giving the option of 'none of the above' is a good idea since it would separate people who choose not to answer and people who haven't voted.

I also like the idea about asking which elections the people have voted in, but it may be difficult to ask each year. Some people may not remember specifically, or were not eligible to vote at that time. I also like the idea of the prefer not to answer that Jen has mentioned. Maybe a question along the lines of

"In the years you have been eligible to vote how many Provincial elections have you voted in 1. All of them 2. More than half 3. Less than half 4. None 5. Prefer not to answer"

I'll add it to the main page, feel free to edit

But i guess the problem with that wording would be that we couldn't measure which election was higher. Will edit it back to a. 1997 b.2001 c.2005 d.2009 e. None of the above d. Prefer not to answer.

I like Jennifer's idea to give participants the option "none of the above" because if we choose to instead allow them to have the choice of not answering at all it could effect how valid our results may be. In order to accurately measure the influence of media on political participation we should also examine the different forms of media which were available then ('97) in comparison to the ones available now. So maybe instead of Has there been an increase in the availability of the news we can ask "Has the availability of new forms of media (Facebook, Twitter) effected your level of political participation?" or "Do you feel new forms of media have influenced you to engage more in the electoral process?"

I also agree with Chris that since we are looking at a certain time frame to support our hypothesis we do need to target people who were eligible to vote since '97 to clarify that their lack of participation was not due to age restrictions.

I think we should exam people's behaviour of political participation and envolvement in media at the same period of time. There might be cases that people who read and watch more political news less than before but participated in the last election. So when we propose the question examining the political participation, we'd better just look at the most recent one. While for question with regard to the exposure to the media, I think people are tend to answer according to their most recent experience.

I agree that for "1. How do you get your news?" it is important to add the radio. CBC gets a high number of listeners, not to mention hourly news on local music stations. For many people, the only news they are exposed to in a day could be a combination of word of mouth and the news they hear during music breaks while commuting to and from work. I realize it's a bit late in the game to be adding options to questions, but if you guys are ok with it then I can add the option.

Yikes, good catch. I completely agree, just slipped my mind when I first jotted down the question.

One more thing I want to add to this (not to throw too big a wrinkle into this) would be people who get their information from TV shows that aren't necessarily classified as "news shows".

For instance, Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart, Colbert Report, Real Time w/ Bill Maher, SNL, etc.

Moreover, some people get info from Jay Leno and David Letterman... Can we add "comedy shows" to our options?

I think that while it's true that some people do use these programs as their primary source of news, they don't really merit their own category. I think 'American television' should cover those options aptly.

We could... Obviously there are Canadian equivalents thereof, Rick Mercer and whatnot, I dunno if they're quite so notorious for being people's primary source of news. If we're dropping American television, which I think we are, I suspect we wouldn't want a comedy show option?

Anyone else?

If we are focusing on BC politics, then obviously we can drop all forms, realistically, of American TV. If we don't, then I feel like we need to differentiate between American and Canadian news... It seems to me like the "Canadian perspective" can be that of an outsider looking in, and so the narrative will be different from TV networks like CNN, who'll want to act as the 'insider' to some degree.

Good job Marie Josee and Jennifer, the updated question sounds better! I don’t know if I’m content with the overall list of published questions though. We also need to measure media coverage within the same time frames as the BC elections. This way we can compare the data to see if there is a relationship between media coverage and voter turnout.

I think the questions Ryan published should be fused into something like:

Where do you get your news on BC politics? Check all that apply. 1. Newspapers (e.g. Vancouver Sun, National Post, Metro) 2. Dailies (e.g. Metro, 24) 3. The Internet (e.g. cbc.ca, vancouversun.com, thetyee.ca) 4. Television (e.g. CBC, Global) 5. Social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) 6. Other (Please specify)

We should definitely keep:

Based on your answer to the previous question, how often do you use this [/these] form[s] of media? 1. Everyday 2. 2-3 times a week 2. Once a week 3. Once a month 4. Less than once a month

And then we should ask something along the lines of:

Has this increased or decreased since 1997? 1. Increased 2. Increased Slightly 3. Neutral 4. Decreased 5. Decreased Slightly

I have a more administrative question. Does anyone know if we are permitted to create follow-up questions to any of our five main questions?

Kimberly, I don't think we could propose other follow-up questions, if my memory doesn't get me wrong.( But better double-check with Professor Owen)

Why don't we make a list of topics we might want to explore:

-Support for HST -Whether you dislike the tax or you dislike how the government introduced it -Questions about perceptions of the impact of the tax (e.g. who will be affected most).

Does it matter to the general public/electorate how the revenue from the HST will be used? If it were used for certain things - education, health care, combating poverty, paying for a new ceiling for BC Place - would it make the HST an acceptable tax?

Is the HST a regressive or progressive tax?

How does the HST affect students?

An idea for a topic for the survey could be media and how it affects voter turnout

It may also be interesting to explore the role that social media plays in political participation. For example - Have you become more active in politics as a result of something you saw/read on facebook, twitter etc.?

Another idea for a topic in the survey could be how the decline of print media has played a role in voters political awareness?

Does tweeting/joining facebook groups (say, denouncing Bush) constitute as political participation?

How much are these forms of expression taken into account by our institution? (In other words, do politicians/bureaucrats actually concerned about such phenomena?)

I like the idea of exploring how media influences voter turnout. I think it would be interesting to know specifically what affect positive vs. negative political coverage of candidates and issues has on voter turnout, e.g. Is negative media more likely to fire up the electorate, or alienate them?

I think a core question, and a timely one, is where people are getting their news in the first place (TV? Newspapers? Internet news services? P2P-type social media? Elsewhere?)

I'm also pretty interested in perceptions of media effectiveness in BC... Do people like their options? Do they feel that BC-based media is fair? Partisan? Accurate? Honest? etc.

I like the turnout idea too.

It would be interesting to see how voter turnout or other types of political participation differ between individuals with varying types of media involvement - social media, newspapers, television. Are those who participate in multiple levels more inclined to participate? Can social media help drive a political interest?

I agree that a key question would be where people are getting their news ie internet, tv, newspapers, and maybe in addition to that the company that provides it? CNN, CBC etc.

I think tweeting or joining groups could be considered part of political participation. It puts an individuals opinion in the public sphere for others to consume, can be seen as a form of online protest.

A (research) question I'd be interested in along those lines is whether social media activism (of the really basic sort, changing your profile picture to the Egyptian flag, or your location to Iran on twitter) has any sort of correlation with, if you'll forgive the slightly perjorative phrasing, more meaningful acts of engagement. By which I mean, are the people who get really into political causes on social media more likely to get involved in more traditional ways? Or less likely?

Obviously young people are generally both more active online and less inclined to political participation, but I suspect the degree to which this is true is well-established and can thus be controlled for.

In any case, as far as our survey questions go, I think asking about social media activism is definitely worthwhile, but I also think we should be sure to distinguish it from more traditional(/impactful :P) activity types.

I agree with you, Ryan. I think it's important to find out whether an increase in the use of social media sites lead to an increase in political activism, but I think it's even more important to determine exactly what types of social media are most effective in bringing about political activism. I don't think we should equate all types of social media as being equal. For example, 'liking' a facebook page or retweeting may be called 'slactivism' and not activism. We should determine A) who uses social media and B) what types of social media are most effective in creating political activism and participation.

Another, kind of simple, thing we can look at would be the various sources of media primarily used, and how they correlate to votes cast... So, for instance, we can see if there is a correlation between Cable News network ratings during election season, and how the parties perform...

I.e., is there a correlation between the avg amount of viewers in the US that MSNBC gets, and the performance of Democratic party on election day?

it might give insight into whether or not media bias has measurable effect.

I think this question has a lot of potential, but I think we may want to separate it into two distinct questions. First, is there a clear connection between a news network and a party (i.e. MSNBC and the Democrats or Fox and the republicans), such that the network is designed to increase support for that party. Second, given we do find a connection between the two, does a positive relationship exist such that increases in viewership coincide with increases in party performance on election day.

I think there's a dangerous confounding variable, insofar as news networks draw viewers that share ideological inclination (the Republican-inclined choose to watch Fox), and moreover adjust their stances to match what they think their viewers want or to fill a perceived niche in the larger news market (as MSNBC may currently be attempting to do). If we're gathering cross-sectional data (as we will be, yes?), I'm hard-pressed to think of a way to unravel that, given that respondents will be poor at judging to what extent their viewpoints led to their choice of news, and to what extent they have evolved from their news choices.

Not to be unconstructive, it's a really good question to ask, I'm just drawing a blank at present on how we might home in on it...

Should we maybe make all our questions focused around one issue that is pertinent to BC residents? Like how the leadership races for the NDP and Liberal Party are being covered in the media. We could maybe find a way to work questions about voter turnout, media choice, social media usage, political activism, media effectiveness into questions on one topic so it would be easier to analyze. Is that a good idea?

Jennifer I like your idea on focusing the issues that is pertinent to BC residents. This will give us direction in what questions to ask. I think our opening questions should get our respondents interested in the survey, then we can start to ask more detailed questions after. For example a good starter question could be Does media coverage effect voter turnout? 1. Strongly Agree 2. Somewhat Agree 3. Neutral 4. Somewhat Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree. After this "cupcake" questions we can then ask more detailed questions such as Jennifer's first post of :explore the role that social media plays in political participation. For example - Have you become more active in politics as a result of something you saw/read on facebook, twitter etc.?

What do you guys think?

Or for example another "cupcake" opening question could be "How strong would you say your knowledge is about the Political Parties platforms are in BC." 1. Very Strong 2. Strong 3. Neutral 4. Weak 5. Very Weak......This way we can kind of judge how politically involved are respondents are.

Should we have a question about how often people are participating in social media "How often do you participate in social media ex/ Facebook, twitter - 1. Frequently 2. Regularly 3. Sometimes 4. Rarely 5. Never" which could lead to "How often do you participate in political matters/protests (Probably will need better phrasing here) through social media ex/ online petitions, facebook groups, organizing protest events online 1. Frequently 2. Regularly 3. Sometimes 4. Rarely 5. Never" If we just want to look at participation of voting we can ask a question along the lines of "In the years you have been eligible to vote how many elections have you voted in 1. All of them 2. More than half 3. Less than half 4. None"

I like your idea of a "cupcake" question Aaron, something very general to get the respondent relaxed and ease into the questions. The Media coverage question would give them a sense of the questions they are to expect in later questions

I also think the search question that "how media influence vote turnout" would be an interesting one. Since there are so many kinds of media and therefore diverse ways that people get explosure to political news and messages, so how about exploring how different media impact vote turnout. Or how new media (such as social media like facebook,twitter, or digital news), compared to traditional ones(Radio,TV,ect.) influence vote turnout.

Personally I doubt the necessity of a "cupcake question." If we're trying to establish a person's perception of an issue, I certainly feel the most efficacious way is to get right into it with questions that are as general, neutral, and utilitarian as possible. However, I agree that a basic first question to establish the respondent's political activeness/awareness should be included so we could relate levels of political activity to utilization of various media options. That said, a question that asks about respondents knowledge of party's platforms is a bit too specific in my opinion; I'd prefer something a shade more general, like "How closely do you follow British Columbian politics?", followed by a very closely --> not at all scale.

Also, I agree with Ryan: certainly one of our core questions should investigate respondents' sources of news. In my opinion, that should go directly after the general question about general political activeness/awareness before getting into more complicated questions.

We need to decide whether we want to focus on the voting in one election or the voting of elections throughout the years. I think a starter question is asking whether the respondent participated in the last BC election (if we are choosing to focus specifically on BC residents). However, introducing a third-person introduction may help decrease the likelihood of a respondent lying about their activity.

As a rough example: Some people choose to vote in their provincial election. Other people are unable to or disinterested in doing so. In regards to the most recent, past provincial election, did you: A) Vote B) Not Vote C) Were Not Eligible D) Prefer Not to Answer

I think another interesting question, as mentioned above, is asking from which social media source people are receiving their political information. I really don't know how to frame this question but something along the lines of asking where the person receives their political information in regards to political parties: print (established newspapers, magazines), online (newspapers, magazines), 24 hour news channels, local news hour, new social media (facebook groups, twitter, etc).

I also definitely agree examining how the media influences voter behaviour (turnout, actual candidate/party choice, etc.) is essential. Seems like a difficult one to phrase, though, as people will likely reveal little more than their biases if you ask "How much does the media influence you politically?"... additionally, "How great of a role do you think the media plays in politics?" (or the like) measures public perception of the media's influence, which isn't necessarily a good measure of the reality. So that question should certainly be worded carefully.

How about something along the lines of "How much do you trust the opinions of the people you get your news from"? That might capture people who find themselves easily swayed by stuff they see on TV, and would probably do a pretty good job of capturing people who actively resist media opinions...

As far as perceptions vs. reality goes, yeah, I don't see the value of people's beliefs as to how much they're influenced so much, but I think their perceptions could be useful as far as how good a job each type of media does (i.e. "How good a job do you think the following types of media in B.C. do?" TV (1-5) Newspapers (1-5) etc.)

Obviously a *huge* topic, and really we might even like to break it down to the specific news services (CBC, Province, Vancouver Sun, Global/CTV/whatever other news channels we have etc. etc.), but that could get unwieldy and boring fast...

I definitely agree that shifting the question from "How much does the media influence you politically?" to a question regarding a person's perception of bias in types of media. Instead of framing it in way that sort of accuses the a person of being influenced (something most won't admit to) it focuses on specific media sources. I kind of think public perception of the media's influence would be interesting to look at, especially in comparison to the actual level of influence we detect through our other questions. I know there was a recent debate about the possibility of bias in the CBC's reporting, so it is something the public is aware of/becoming more aware of, as the topic was making news recently.

The question that concerns perceptions of how good a job media does, or referring to specific news services is a good start. Perhaps instead of naming all the possible sources of news service it could act as a follow up question to "where do you get your news from?" and in the choices of that first question we could include examples like 1) Print (The Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun etc.). But then the problem would be people might be defensive about their news service of choice, believing it to be bias free even if it isn't. I don't know, it's difficult to word the question without sounding accusatory.

Perhaps after asking "where do you get your news from" we could just ask the participant if they would mind specifying which source it came from. Do you receive your political information from 1)print news sources 2) online news sources 3)televised news and would you mind specifying which source ie CBC, Globe and Mail This would allow for an out for the participant if they feel they don't want to answer the question. I'm not sure if that would count as two questions or not, but I think maybe this should be one of the first questions to ask before the participant could put a guard.

Hey Guys before we fiure out what questions we are going to ask I think we should narrow our ideas to ONE Research Question and go from there. I think if we do this things will get alot easier. We need one general research question that we can analyze and our survey questions can then support.

Hey all since we are trying to create 5 survey questions in terms of media effecting voter turn out we need to focus our survey either Internationally, Federally, or Locally. The topic can go in many directions so I think it is best to get a broad consensus on what we should focus on. A couple people have already suggested BC politics. I personally think this would be the best route as it would be pertinent to all of us. Once we have done this then we can start focusing our survey questions.

What do you guys think?

I'm pretty sure the survey is going to be given to BC residents (does anybody else remember hearing that?) so it would seem like BC politics would be the best bet, since that is what people are going to be most familiar with. That's my vote.

That's probably true, but I feel like the more local your political analysis becomes, the less people become interested. For example, I have no real interest in how the municipal race in Vancouver is going to turn out because its perceived to have a smaller effect on me, whether or not thats true. I do care, however, on how federal elections turn up, both in Canada and the US.

More people are going to be able to recognize Barack Obama and his policies over Gordon Campbell (HST, excluded here), simply because his power is much "sexier" and more appealing to the masses. Campbell has a MUCH higher effect on residents of BC, however.

Maybe we can ask a question on which political races individuals more closely follow. Personally, I believe that those preferences are strongly affected by the media... I think in terms of a correlation between independent variable: size of political race (in terms of number of eligible voters) and dependent variable: voter turnout in percentage, there will be a strong positive correlation...

I'm sure there are several reasons for this, but bottom line is CNN's national broadcast is not going to cover an issue that does not appeal to (in their opinion) ALL viewers.

We seem to have a consensus on a specific research topic: Is voter turnout/political participation influenced by media coverage? In order to make a well-founded assessment of this research question, it would be safe to analyze a ten-year period. Since media has evolved exponentially in the last ten years, this would give us a clear view of the situation. In order to do so, however, we would need to target a group that has been eligible to vote for the last ten years. In this case, we could try to correlate an increase in the levels of media coverage from 2001 to 2011 (which seems easy enough to do) and see if there is also an increase in the voter turnout/political participation. This would allow us to assess our research question and would allow us to display and organize our information in a nice time-series graph. This will also allow us to tailor more specific questions (something that should be taken into consideration, given that this assignment is due on Tuesday). What do you guys think?

Is there a way that we can do it without our questions only being interested in a certain demographic of people? I am not sure that it is best to limit the people who are relevant to our research. Is there a way that we could look the reasons why people vote for a specific party? If we focus on where they get their political information from (ie: media outlets) we could look at whether the amount of increased media coverage has caused an increase in political knowledge/interest.

I think your ten year time series format focusing on eligible voters will be effective. In terms of the broad consensus issue: voter turnout/political participation as a result of media coverage, I think based on the questions suggested that this should be divided into three central issues. The first being a definition of what media coverage in fact encompasses (Is it just TV/Print/Radio/Major News Sites, or should we include new information outlets like blogs, facebook, and twitter?). Second, the relationship you mentioned between growth in media coverage and the effect this has on voter turnout over time. Finally, whether or not there is a partisan element to coverage, and whether this has the effect of redirecting voters from one party to another, or swinging undecideds. We can then decide whether we want to focus this media analysis locally, or take a broader approach focusing on Canada or the US, and figure out the questions specifically in the Question Wording section.

According to the majority of the comments it seemed we have come to agree that our survey question will deal with the role of the media in regards to voter turn out. Which ever direction we take it would be essential for us to analyze some kind of a time line that would support our research. However I wondering if it would be possible for the focus of our survey to not be on voter turn out but something else. Though its a great idea and we would be able to find an extensive amount of research I feel the topic is a little over used. I liked the idea of presenting the effect social media sites or news networks on politics. In class today the Owen talked about the events taking place in Egypt and how Twitter and Facebook may have influenced this revolution. A few questions I was thinking of are... "Do social media sites lead to an increase in political activism?" or in regards to election and campaigns "Does the Media play a role in influencing governmental agendas?" These are just suggestions. I also like Jennifer's question about where people obtain their news on political matters.

Yeah I think Andrew has a good point. We need to elaborate on what we mean by ‘media coverage’. I think we should include all the media sources you discussed (i.e. TV/Print/Radio/Major News Sites/Blogs/Facebook/Twitter). Part of my hypothesis is that media coverage increases from 2001 to 2011 and this is partly due to the increase in popularity and number of new age social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. I also hope to see a positive relationship between the growth in media coverage and the effect this has on voter turnout over time. Could you please elaborate, however, on the partisan element you want to quantify.

I also like your questions Fatou, especially: "Do social media sites lead to an increase in political activism?" That would be really interesting to measure. How would you go about this project? What would be the causal mechanism that connects X to Y? And is there some confounding variable Z that makes the observed association between X and Y spurious? Sounds like an exciting endeavor, especially since it can shed light on the crisis taking place in Egypt.

The causal mechanism that may connect X and Y can be analyzed by looking at the amount of political advocacy groups currently on facebook or Twitter dealing with current events that promote or discuss political activism. We would then have to figure out what influence these pages have had on the general public. This is where our survey questions could become very effective if we for example asked things like "Do you affilitate yourself with a political advocacy group on social network sites or How often do you recieve updates on events which would involve your advocacy for a particular global issue..."

There is a definate possibility that there may be a confounding Z variable but then we can shift the focus of our topic and instead determine whether social media sites have facilitated political activism.

I agree that looking at political activism along with voter turnout would be interesting. It may be possible that our research may not show a link between increase in media with increases in voter turnout, but instead increases in other modes of political participation such as: signing petitions, organizing/attending events or protests, joining interest groups, communicating with local MLAs or MPs etc. Personally, I think social media has increased political participation in other avenues outside of voter turnout, and if we could measure those changes along with voter turnout it could provide us a more accurate measurement of political participation and its relationship with the increase of media in the last 10 years or so.