James C. Witte

Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, or Supplement Social Capital? Social Networks, Participation, and Community Commitment

How does the Internet affect social capital? Do the communication possibilities of the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement interpersonal contact, participation, and community commitment? This evidence comes from a 1998 survey of 39,211 visitors to the National Geographic Society Web site, one of the first large-scale Web surveys. The authors find that peoples interaction online supplements their face-to-face and telephone communication without increasing or decreasing it. However, heavy Internet use is associated with increased participation in voluntary organizations and politics. Further support for this effect is the positive association between offline and online participation in voluntary organizations and politics. However, the effects of the Internet are not only positive: The heaviest users of the Internet are the least committed to online community. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the Internet is becoming normalized as it is incorporated into the routine practices of everyday life.

Research methodology: method and representation in Internet-based survey tools—mobility, community, and cultural identity in Survey2000

The Survey2000 Project is the largest and most comprehensive Internet-based social science survey to date. Along with generating interesting data about geographic mobility, feelings of community, and culinary, literary, and musical tastes, the experience of operating a survey with Internet tools has set into sharp relief important methodological issues of sample size, representation, and generalization. The authors argue that Internet-based survey research can yield meaningfully comparable data about both Internet users and larger populations.

Web Survey Design Balancing Measurement, Response, and Topical Interest

Using data from Survey2001, we analyze how visual images embedded in a web-based survey can (1) reduce nonresponse in the specific case that a respondent prematurely terminates the survey and (2) preserve measurement validity. Page-by-page progression through the survey is modeled as a survival process with early termination seen as failure. While images had no apparent effect on the termination process, respondent interest in the survey topic was linked to early termination. These results highlight the importance of placing interest-related questions early in the survey to better control for the effects of interest-driven attrition. Moreover, these findings suggest that an interactional information system approach, one that not only collects data but also pushes relevant information to respondents, may serve to generate or maintain interest and in the process reduce survey attrition.

Instrument effects of images in web surveys: a research note

This research note offers cautionary evidence, indicating just how little we know about how respondents react to and complete Web surveys. Researchers using or contemplating a Web-based approach need to be very clear that the line between the phenomena to be measured and the means of measurement is often quite fuzzy. This note uses data from Survey2001 to illustrate this point. Nearly 30,000 respondents completed part or all of Survey2001, which was hosted by the National Geographic Magazine’s Web site and queried individuals on a number of topics related to the impact of information technology on conservation, community and culture.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Web Surveys

In 1997 as an untenured assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University, I was contacted by an editor at the National Geographic Society’s Web site. The editor heard I had training in demography and experience working with survey data. As part of the Society’s coverage of the upcoming millennium, they were exploring the idea of using the Web to collect survey data, in particular survey data on the impact of migration on cultural identity. With considerable programming support from Northwestern, editorial assistance from the National Geographic, and a measure of naiveté but no real budget, I agreed to take on the challenge. Survey2000 was created with content advice and encouragement from a diverse group of senior colleagues, including William Sims Bainbridge (the National Science Foundation), Wendy Griswold (Northwestern University), Richard Peterson (Vanderbilt University), and Barry Wellman (University of Toronto). Built on a mixture of static HTML pages and Pearl programming, Survey2000 went live in 1998 and was scheduled to collect data in time for coverage in the December 1999 edition of the National Geographic magazine. From my perspective, at that time the key research question regarding Survey2000 was to see if complex survey data could be collected using the Web in a wide-open environment. Quite simply, could the contraption fly? And, in fact, it did fly. Over a 10-week period, more than 87,000 individuals in 178 countries took part in the survey. The average respondent spent nearly 45 minutes on the survey (Witte et al. 2000). In Contemporary Sociology Bainbridge (1999:664) described the project as an example of ‘‘innovating in the use of the new computerized media for research’’ rather than ‘‘retreating into a narrow niche in the university curriculum while other disciplines become the social science of the future.’’ Datacollected Sociological Methods & Research Volume 37 Number 3 February 2009 283-290

AWE: A robotic wall and reconfigurable desk supporting working life in a digital society

“AWE” is a programmable “Animated Work Environment” supporting everyday human activities, at home, work and school, in an increasingly digital society. AWE features a novel robotic “wall,” three horizontal, reconfigurable work surfaces, and embedded information technologies. The video shows AWE as a digital simulation moving through six standard wall-desk configurations, interspersed with still photos and video clips of people interacting with the physical, full-scale, working prototype. The video also shows AWE beginning to behave intelligently as well as users fine-tuning AWEs configurations by gesturing proximity sensors mounted at the hinges between wall panels. Usability testing suggests that AWE clearly adapts to variations in complex activities involving users working or playing in a single physical space with both physical and digital tools and artifacts.

Database design for dynamic online surveys

This paper discusses the architecture and implementation of dynamic Web-based surveys with an emphasis on the recently completed Survey2001 project. Survey2001 was made available at the National Geographic Web site for several months starting October 2001 and could be taken in four different languages: English, German, Spanish and Italian. This paper discusses surveys and the advantages of Web-based surveys, lays the background for Survey2001, describes the details of the database used and the manner in which transitions were conducted in this dynamic Web-based survey. It also lists the results, including other surveys developed using the same database structure, and concludes with a look to the future.