<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi Maxigas, <div><br></div><div>I was responding to surveys more generally. Didn't do a close read on this particular one. I generally agree with your points -- you can read surveys for the inherent biases therein. "The averaged american" is a helpful book, as is Laura Stark's work on IRBs, both from more of an historical/STS perspective. </div><div><br></div><div>Regarding agenda, it depends on how you define "agenda" and whether you come from an empirical tradition. You come from a european critical tradition so it's natural you would read surveys as a different kind of evidence. From a social science perspective there are rules for assembling proper surveys - eliminating bias while addressing specific research questions or hypotheses. But rarely have I seen good surveys come from an MA student. Errors in surveys - your example of hackers being related to software - may be an "agenda" but it's also poor survey construction and a misunderstanding a population of interest. </div><div><br></div><div>For a number of reasons, many of which you outlined, surveys are not a good methodology for gathering data on political participation. What "political" means tends to get defined a priori which is a terrible idea for hacker and maker spaces given their widely divergent ideologies and efforts. </div><div><br></div><div>But now we're boring the list crowd. Good to chat as always. </div><div><br></div><div>A</div><div><div apple-content-edited="true"><br></div><div apple-content-edited="true"><br></div>
<br><div><div>On Jan 16, 2014, at 9:57 AM, maxigas <<a href="mailto:maxigas@anargeek.net">maxigas@anargeek.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; ">Every survey has an agenda, which it can push more or less strongly, or more or less consciously. But there is one rule: no agenda = no survey. </span></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>