Survey - Are People Better Informed in the Information Society?

Billie Hiraishi

Patricia Andrews

Media, Politics, & Society

October 23, 2010

Introduction:

In unit 6, Issue 18 from Alexander Hansos book "Taking Sides" Hanson approaches the question, "Are people better informed in the information society," having Linda Jackson answer yes and Mark Bauerlein answer no, both giving reasons to support their answers. Jacksons main point was that internet usage at home helps the academic performance of low income children. Bauerleins main focus was arguing that this generation of young Americans are poorly educated and will not succeed in work needed for the future of the United States because of the digital age. After reading both sides of this question, are people better informed in the information society, I found Jacksons reasoning more interesting because she brought up interesting facts, such as improving your visual intelligence skills by playing video games that I've never heard before. Because I found Jacksons research more interesting I've decided to come up with a hypothesis for my survey that focused more on Bauerlein's point of view to see if by conducting a survey from his perspective, I would find some interesting facts, and I have.

Hypothesis:

In my opinion, although citizens of California have complete access to information about the upcoming elections through different media outlets, they are not educating themselves and making aneffort to become informed.

Survey Method:

After coming up with my hypothesis, I strategized on finding a way to prove it was right in the end. The method I used was to target young Americans with questions that would be easy and fast for them to answer, but questions that would show how uninformed they are about the upcoming California State elections. I used a basic hard copy survey and had a few of my teamates on the NDNU men's and women's soccer team fill them out because we were traveling for games in Hawai'i and residents of Hawai'i wouldn't be as informed if informed at all about the California elections, as these student-athletes are.

Description of the Survey:

My survey consists of five questions tha include either yes or no questions, multiple choice questions, and on enumber rating question. Here is a copy of my survey questions:

1. Are you a registered voter? Yes or No

2. When reading the paper or using social networks online, such as facebook, twitter, and blogs, which name do you come across the most?


a) Jerry Brown
b) Meg Whitman
c) Taylor Swift
d) Lady Gaga

3. Do you know when Election Day is? Yes or No, if yes when is it?

4. If you have access to the internet on your phone, what do you mainly use it for?

a) Updates on the upcoming election (which can include news outlets)

b) Social networks (Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter)
c) Work or homework
d) You don't have internet access on your phone


5. At the end of the day, having access to all media outlets (newspapers, internet, television, etc) how well informed are you of the California State Elections from a scale of 1 to 10?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Results Summary:

Results for survey question 1 - Are you a registered voter?

11 Student-Athletes answered YES

10 Student-Athletes answered NO

Results for survey question 2 - When reading the paper or using social networks online, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs, which name do you come across the most?

1 Student-Athlete answered Jerry Brown

1 Student-Athlete answered Meg Whitman

3 Student-Athletes answered Taylor Swift
16 Student-Athletes answered Lady Gaga


Results for survey question 3 - Do you know when Election Day is?

2 Student-Athletes answered YES

19 Student-Athletes answered NO

Results for survey question 4 - If you have access to the internet on your phone, what do you mainly use it for?

0 Student-Athletes answered updates on the upcoming elections

15 Student-Athletes answered social networks

1 Student-Athlete answered work and homework

5 Student-Athletes answered that they don't have access to the internet on their phone

Results for survey question 5 - At the end of the day, having access to all media (newspapers, internet, television, etc) how well informed are you of the California State Elections from a scale of 1 to 10?

5 Student-Athletes rated 1

3 Student-Athletes rated 2

4 Student-Athletes rated 3

4 Student-Athletes rated 4

2 Student-Athletes rated 5

2 Student-Athletes rated 6
1 Student-Athletes rated 7
0 Student-Athletes rated 8

0 Student-Athletes rated 9

0 Student-Athletes rated 10

Conclusion:

After conducting my results, I came to the conclusion that majority of these Student-Athletes have access to information about the upcoming California Election through different media outlets, but theu don't take advantage of this privilege, which leaves them uninformed about the upcoming elections. I started my survey off by asking the Student-Athletes if he/she is a registered voter because that is obviously the first step towards being educated and contributing their own opinion for a better society. The results that I received from the first survey question was pretty close in numbers having 11 Student-Athletes answer yes, they are a registered voter and 10 Student-Athletes answer no they are not a registered voter. Because the numbers were extremely close and other information from another survey question supported my hypothesis, I believe that there are many citizens whi are registered voters, but do not vote. The second survey question was, when reading paper or using social networks online such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs, which name do you come across the most. The options I had were Jerry Brown (Democrat candidate) who had one Student-Athlete, Meg Whitman (Republican candidate) who also had one Student-Athlete, Taylor Swift (Country artist) who had three Student-Athletes, and Lady Gaga (Pop-Artist) who had the majority of sixteen Student-Athletes. The results for this survey question showed me that while having access to newspapers or social networks, the majority, nineteen Student-Athletes to be specific remember the names of music artist such as Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, whereas only two Student-Athletes remember the names of two important candidates running for the 2010 Governor of California. An assumption that I made while looking through the answers of survey question two is that these Student-Athletes probably had such as high number for Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift because they chose to focus on the words "Social Network" instead of "Newspapers" when reading the question. The interesting thing about this is that if these Student-Athletes focused this question in a familiar name they come across in the newspapers rather than social networks, the result would be different, but its because these Student-Athletes probably use social networks more then they read the newspaper. To figure-out whether or not these Student-Althletes are informed about the upcoming elections, the third survey question I asked was if he/she knows whe Election Day is. The results for this third survey question showed that out of the twenty-one Student-Athletes, only two of them know when the correct election day is, which is November 2, 2010. These results showed me that just because you are a registered voter (taken from the first survey question) or might be a little familiar with the candidates, it doesn't matter if you do not know when the Primary Election Day is. The fourth survey question is, if you have access to the internet on your phone, what do you mainly use it for. The options that I gave were, updates on the upcoming election (including news outlets) which had zero Student-Athletes, social networks (Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter) which containted fifteen of our Student-Athletes, work and homework, which had only one of our Student-Athletes, and five of our Student-Athletes do not have access to the internet on their phone. Looking over the results and taking information from Bauerleins perspective, our generation now is very socially connected to eachother online and its only obvious that when using the internet, whether its on our phones or computer, young Americans, such as these Student-Athletes will always use a scoail network more then they would use news updates, such as the upcoming elections. For the last survey question I asked the Student-Athletes, at the end of the day, having access to all media (newspapers, internet, television, etc) how well informed they are of the California State Elections from a scale of 1 o 10. From my research for this survey question I noticed that there were 18 Student-Athletes who rates were in the lower side, rating from 1 through 5 and only 3 Student-Athletes rated on the higher side from 6 through 10. Becaues this is a straightforward question asking the Student-Athletes their personal opinion on how informed they feel they are about the upcoming elections, it shows the truth on how they really feel, which majority chose uninformed by rating 1 through 5. From my research and results I've come to the conclusion that my hypothesis is right when answering the question, "Are people better informed in the information society?" My hypothesis emphasized the idea that although citizens of California have complete access to media outlets that have all the information one needs to be well informed about the upcoming elections, they do not discipline themselves good enough to be greatly educated on this election because they rather be using social networks such as Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter.