Question Wording

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)