Data and Method

  • Description of Methods
  • Description of Data
    • Plan of collecting data.
    • Date, Changes, Reasons

2 thoughts on “Data and Method”

  1. There will be multiple modes of data collection for this project — cognitive maps, interviews, a survey. I decided to start out by organizing a survey that would go out to the student body. Because I am intersted in studying the affect of a person’s political, racial, and geographical identity on their conception of public service, I included a few questions that would allows students to self identify along these lines. These questions were multiple choice, with a few choices that students could choose from, as well as an “other” category (in the case that the choices were not exhaustive enough). There are also some open ended questions that attempt to ask students about their thoughts more directly. I only sent the survey out to people in my Political Philosophy course, Sociology Capstone course, Theatre course, and THRIVE group. I figured that not only is this a pretty diverse sample (first generation students, students of color, students in government, athletes, students in the arts, students in sociology), but due to my engagement in these courses, people would be more inclined to respond. I hope I am right!

    Attached is the link to the survey: https://forms.gle/KgyQpYzAE4kMwcPu5

  2. Here are a few of my data and methods:

    1. I will be pulling from the NYPD’s Annual Reports. Every year, the NYPD puts out reports on the cities crime rate and to support my claims about the downward trends in crime, I reference this data.

    2. I will be scrubbing Nexus Uni for newspaper articles that I code as including “vilifying” language. I will be looking at major publications like the New York Times that millions of people read.

    Here is an excerpt of my explanation of my methodology from my project:

    ” In order to assess the villification of New York in the media, I turned to Nexus Uni. Nexus Uni is one of the largest databases for newspapers, magazines, and other print media. Because I wanted to track the progression of the villification of New York in the media, I decided to input the words “New York” and “Dangerous”, as I figured that this combination of words would yeild the most results that directly refrence crime. Although inputting “New York” and “Crime” would also produce articles reporting on crime in the city, I did not want a search engine full of crime reports. I wanted my search to reproduce articles that would tell me about the percieved character of the city. I also did not constrain my search to a time frame, I wanted to be able to visualize the progression and examine the spikes and dips in coverage.”

    3. I included a study on “Crime News Consumption and Fear of Violence: The Role of Traditional Media, Social Media, and Alternative Information Sources” by Matti Näsi et al, and outlined the methods and results of that study. This study is great because it draws a really clear parallel between Finland and NYC, who are both experiencing an increase in crime perception.

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