Collaborative Research: Using Web Data to Study U.S. Congressional Campaigns and Representation

协作研究：使用网络数据研究美国国会竞选和代表

• 批准号: 1155043
• 负责人: James Druckman
• 金额: $ 14.46万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-05-01 至 2015-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1155043&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Using; Web; Data

Electoral campaigns are a defining feature of democratic polities. Yet studying electoral campaigns and their effects has been difficult. In recent work, the investigators have developed a theory of campaign communication and tested expectations using data from campaigns' and members' official websites. With the support of two collaborative National Science Foundation grants (SES-0822819, SES-0822782, and SES-1024079, SES-1023291, SES-1022902), the investigators have amassed a data set consisting of more than 1,500 website codings, from 2002 through 2010. These data offer unprecedented opportunities to study campaigns and their effects. The investigators will extend their data collection to include the 2012 campaign and the 2011 and 2013 legislative sessions. They will code sites over the course of the campaign, archive sites, implement a survey of website designers, and code official member websites approximately one year after the campaigns. They also will solicit input on the coding scheme to include features that interest other scholars who can then use the data for their own research. Extending the data to include the 2012 election (and the 2011 and 2013 legislative sessions) is critical for various reasons: partisanship differs from what it has been in past years of the project; the infusion of new members of Congress in 2012 raises intriguing questions about path dependency and the power of parties in affecting behaviors of those who ran untraditional campaigns; and the increasingly technological expectations of the public may stimulate an increase in what has been rudimentary technical usage on websites. In the end, the investigators will construct a publicly available data set that includes coding of approximately 1,900 campaign websites and roughly 300 official member websites, over twelve points in time. The project has clear intellectual merit. The data will enable scholars to track the evolution of the Internet over time and test theories of campaigns and representation. Unlike other unmediated sources of campaign communication, such as television advertisements and debates, virtually all candidates launch campaign websites and all representatives have official websites. This allows for analyses on a representative sample of candidates and members, rather than a biased sample. Websites also enable politicians to present a holistic picture of their behaviors rather than short sound bites or selected roll call votes. The project also produces broader impacts. Insights generated from these data could improve campaigns and representation. The project will involve students who will learn how to conduct research and be able to use the data in their own work. In the end, the project uniquely brings together data on three key components of democratic polities: campaigns, voting, and representation.

竞选活动是民主政体的一个决定性特征。然而，研究竞选活动及其影响一直很困难。在最近的工作中，研究人员开发了一种竞选传播理论，并使用来自竞选活动和成员官方网站的数据测试了预期。在两个国家科学基金会合作赠款（SES-0822819，SES-0822782和SES-1024079，SES-1023291，SES-1022902）的支持下，研究人员收集了一个数据集，包括2002年至2010年的1,500多个网站编码。这些数据为研究运动及其影响提供了前所未有的机会。调查人员将扩大其数据收集范围，以包括2012年的竞选活动以及2011年和2013年的立法会议。他们将在活动期间对网站进行编码，对网站进行存档，对网站设计师进行调查，并在活动结束后大约一年对正式成员网站进行编码。他们还将征求对编码方案的意见，以包括其他学者感兴趣的特征，然后这些学者可以将数据用于自己的研究。将数据扩展到包括2012年选举（以及2011年和2013年的立法会议）由于各种原因而至关重要：党派之争与过去几年的项目不同; 2012年新国会议员的涌入引发了关于路径依赖和政党影响非传统竞选活动的权力的有趣问题;公众对技术的期望越来越高，这可能会刺激网站上基本技术使用的增加。最后，调查人员将构建一个公开的数据集，其中包括超过12个时间点的大约1，900个活动网站和大约300个官方会员网站的编码。该项目具有明显的智力价值。这些数据将使学者能够跟踪互联网随着时间的推移的演变，并测试运动和代表性的理论。与电视广告和辩论等其他未经中介的竞选传播渠道不同，几乎所有候选人都推出竞选网站，所有代表都有官方网站。这样就可以对候选人和成员的代表性样本进行分析，而不是对有偏见的样本进行分析。网站还使政治家能够全面地展示他们的行为，而不是简短的声音片段或选择性的唱名投票。该项目还产生了更广泛的影响。从这些数据中产生的见解可以改善活动和代表性。该项目将涉及学生谁将学习如何进行研究，并能够在自己的工作中使用的数据。最后，该项目独特地汇集了民主政体三个关键组成部分的数据：竞选，投票和代表。