Saturday, January 28, 2006

Princeton Research and the Pew, Part 2

Last December I wrote about being called by Priceton Research and interviewed about my Internet use. They called back a few weeks ago for part 2 of the survey. This time they did ask if I read newspapers, how often, etc., as well as radio, use of the Internet for news. They also asked a lot of blogging questions. Did I have one, how often did I update it, did people besides my friends read it, did I use my own name or a pseud., etc. Some of the questions used loaded subjective terms (I think they asked if the blog was influential -- if it wasnt' that it was a similar term). I asked for a definition of what the meant by that. She said they wanted to know if I thought it was [whatever the word was]. There were a lot of questions. I'll be interested in seeing the overall survey results. Undefined subjective words in surveys always make me nervous.

3 comments:

LVDem said...

whatever term they used, they were probably not looking so much for influence but a measurement of empowerment. Does a political blog empower you?

I would hope the answer is yes, b/c your work certainly seems to empower at least a few readers.

AboveAvgJane said...

LV, Yes, I am having a blast writing the blog. And I suppose that asking if I thought it were influential would be one way of finding that out but it would have been more correct just to ask me that or if writing the blog gave me a sense of satisfaction.

Thanks for the kind words! I'm pleased to see you started your own political blog and check in regularly to see what you have to say.

LVDem said...

Appreciated.

However, the indicators to measure empowerment are different than satisfaction. Empowerment is a sense of self actualization while satisfaction is a sense of gratification, not necessisarily for for self. The thing about empowerment is that you can never come out and ask "do you feel empowered." It requires questions that dance around it.

Regardless of the questions they ask, the fact that major research groups are inquiring about blogs indicates that there is an intereste in the potency of a movement.