RA #2 How Informed Are You
Do you believe the more technology you use; the more aware you will be about politics? This is what I am testing for my class on. In Professor Andrews’s class, I had to survey five percent of my population (friends and family), and see how aware the people are about the Governor’s Race. I will need to hand each person a list of five questions, and have them answer it to the best of their ability. The whole point of this test is to see what people know already, regarding the governor race and for them not to look up the answers. I believe that the more hours someone spends using technology, then the more informed they will be and consume about any topic relating to politics. I find this true because someone that uses technology versus someone who does not use technology are much more informed about news, topics, and world events. This is why I decided to survey my friends and family, to get the true findings of what they really know about politics.
I started my survey with five basic questions regarding the governor’s race, and to test the 5 percent of my population. The five questions I asked were, who is democrat and who is republican, what day do you cast your vote, how long can a governor stay in office, where does Whitman and Brown get their money to advertise themselves, and lastly, has anyone been in office before. I wanted to start the survey seeing if people even knew who was running for the 2010 election, because if they didn’t, then there was no reason to ask them anything else. If they did know, then I wanted to see if they knew when they could vote because that is very important for the election. If the people voted the person of their choice, then they should know how long the governor will be in office, so I thought that was another important question. Then, I wanted to see if anyone knew where their governors were getting the money to advertise themselves. This shows the citizens how responsible the governors are with their money. Then wrapping up the survey, I figured I’d see if the population knew anything about Whitman or Brown past and if either one of them have ever ran for office before. I figured these were straight up easy questions, and if they didn’t know anything about these, they were not informed at all.
The way I tested the population, was that I sent out a mass e-mail through Facebook asking people to participate in this survey about the governor race. I wanted to find out how much people knew about their governor race. I sent out about 70 messages to my friends and family, and got about 50 responses back. I sent out the survey asking people to answer the questions to their best of knowledge without looking anything up, because that was the whole point of this project. I was surprised with the amount of responses I got right away. I got way more responses then I needed, but I used them anyway to make the survey more accurate. After getting the answers, I knew what to conclude right at that point.
From gathering up all the answers from the surveys I collected, I have come to conclusion; the more hours someone use of technology; such as test messaging, internet, TV and online newspaper. I knew this from the start, only because I know with out technology, what can you really know? Technology is the usage and knowledge of tools, to help better inform you about life, politics, sports, and etc. Without the use of technology, people wouldn’t know fact from fiction, true from false in the news that surrounds us. I found from my surveys, that men spend more hours per day with technological devices then women. This show’s that men are informed of information all day long compared to women. On the other hand, women spend more hours at a single time with technological devices, rather then the whole day. These results didn’t really show a difference at all. Either way both genders are still exposed to the same amount of news about politics and the Governors Race, on the same day; either for the whole day or for a longer extend periods of time. From the results, both genders knew pretty much the same amount as the other. The only people who rarely knew anything were the ones who use less then two hours a day accessing internet, TV, or phone. I was surprised with my findings that two of my friends used about five to six hours of technology a day, and they didn’t know one thing about the Governor’s Race. I found this very interesting, because if they were exposed to that much media, weren’t they exposed to something at least regarding the 2010 elections? I also found that many people were confused about the day you cast your vote. Many people said November 4th was the day to cast your vote for the Governor election, but the majority said November 2nd. I couldn’t figure out why many people said the second, and not the forth. Every question was straight forward, you either knew it or didn’t. They weren’t trick questions; they were to test your logical skills.
So in conclusion I found that the more exposed someone is to any type of
technology; it proves they are more informed on any given topic; whether it was news, sports, politics, or religion.. Just from my survey alone, this is what I have found. I’m sure if I surveyed hundreds more people, the conclusion may be different, but I doubt it. The more hours you put into it, the more you will get out of it; not just about the governor race, but all the other news stories that are happening in the world right now. Technology is a way to inform you, and connect you with the other sides of the world. Technology brings the tools of empowerment into the hands and minds of those who use them today. Without this, the would get their information from printed newspapers and TV. Technology such as the internet and cell phones, have brought the world close then we could have ever imagined. Information is just a click away now, simple as that!
(Questions) How much do you really know about the Governor Race?
Please answer the following questions:
1. Who is Democratic _____________ and who is Republican _____________?
2. What day do you cast vote for the governor you’d like______________?
3. If they get elected, how long can a governor stay in office ____________?
4. Where is Meg Whitman getting her money to advertise herself ______________, and where is Jerry Brown getting his money to advertise himself_____________?
5. Has Meg Whitman or Jerry Brown been in office before, if so who___________?
How much technology do you use a day?
-hours______
-how many times a day______
-Text message? ___Internet?___ TV? ___ Newspaper? ___ (Yes or no?)
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