Breaking ground on the virtual frontier: Surveying civic life on the internet

The Internet provides a virtual frontier to expand our access to information and to increase our knowledge and understanding of public opinion, political behavior, social trends and lifestyles through survey research. Comparable to other technological advancements, such as the telephone and the computer, the Internet presents opportunities that will impact significantly on the process and quality of survey research now and in the twenty-first century. Cyberspace permits us to move beyond traditional face-to-face, mail and telephone surveys, yet still to examine basic issues regarding the quality of data collection: sampling, questionnaire design, survey distribution, means of response, and database creation. This surveys include those posted on LISTERV mailing lists, USENET newsgroups, and the World Wide Web. A survey on politics and civic life, conducted by the authors, is used as a case study. She is currently pursuing interests in methodological issues concerning surveying using the Internet, and in policy issues concerning student victimization on college and university campuses. His publications includeViable Democracy (1979);Manipulating Public Opinion (1989);Free Expression, Public Support and Censorship: Examining Government’s Role in the Arts in Canada and the United States (1994); and numerous articles in scholarly and popular journals. His current research interests are contemporary democratic theory and political participation, as well as the political thought of John Locke.