[hackerspaces] Master's thesis

[Andrew Schrock]

Hi Maxigas, 

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. 

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. 

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. 

But now we're boring the list crowd. Good to chat as always. 

A



On Jan 16, 2014, at 9:57 AM, maxigas <maxigas at anargeek.net> wrote:

> 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.  

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