AAPOR's Other Publications

We all know the American Association for Public Opinion's flagship journal, Public Opinion Quarterly, since 1937, available full text from OUP.  But you may not know about two other publications from AAPOR. Survey Practice, an e-journal with public opinion and survey research articles and commentary by and for practitioners. This bi-monthly blog of sorts is available on the AAPOR site going back to 2008.



Also on the site is the 7th edition of Standard Definitions, Final Dispositions of Case Codes and Outcome Rates for Surveys: RDD Telephone Surveys, In-Person Household Surveys, Mail Surveys of Specifically Named Persons, Internet Surveys of Specifically Named Persons (2011). 

Latin American Public opinion at Latinobarometers

From the Penn Library website, a resource for Latin American public opinion:

The Latinobarometers are annual public opinion polls conducted in several Latin American countries, 1995 to present. The 2006 Latinobarometer covered these countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Dominican Republic. The Latinobarometers are designed to complement the other Global Barometer polling projects in African and East Asia.

Latinobarometers typically ask several dozen questions to reveal opinions, attitudes and behavior of 1000 adult residents in each country. A special focus of the Latinobarometers is democracy and democratic consolidation, and individual years also have central themes. Additional information on the Latinobarometers is provided at their website. However, the data sets are not available for free at the website, go through the UPenn Library page for access to those. Each data file is provided in SPSS save format and therefore requires SPSS or other statistical processing software. Data files with PDF-format codebooks are provided in ZIP archive files as delivered by the vendor. PDF-format codebooks are also provided separately as a reference source.

Twittering Away Election Day

Here's a fun way to introduce yourself to the world of Twitter if you aren't a Twitterer yourself or know someone who is. What is Twitter? A combination of social networking and micro-blogging that enables you to post "tweets" of up to 140 characters or less, a sort of bloggers' Haiku (which, unlike Haiku, seems to be a waste of time!).

This site, Election 2008, filters thousands of tweets per minute and feeds you just those that have to do with the election so you get an instant public opinion meter passing before your eyes, as fast as you can read. You can also choose a more sorted view, for example, receive only those posts about Palin or Obama. For what it's worth.

Latin American Public opinion at Latinobarometers

From the Penn Library website, a resource for Latin American public opinion:

The Latinobarometers are annual public opinion polls conducted in several Latin American countries, 1995 to present. The 2006 Latinobarometer covered these countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Dominican Republic. The Latinobarometers are designed to complement the other Global Barometer polling projects in African and East Asia.

Latinobarometers typically ask several dozen questions to reveal opinions, attitudes and behavior of 1000 adult residents in each country. A special focus of the Latinobarometers is democracy and democratic consolidation, and individual years also have central themes.

Additional information on the Latinobarometers is provided at the Latinobarometro web site. However, the data sets are not available for free at the website, go through the UPenn Library page for access to those. Each data file is provided in SPSS save format and therefore requires SPSS or other statistical processing software. Data files with PDF-format codebooks are provided in ZIP archive files as delivered by the vendor. PDF-format codebooks are also provided separately as a reference source.

New Reference Book Arrivals

New in ASC Reference:

Encyclopedia of Political Communication, edited by Lynda Le Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha (Sage Publications, 2008). Key themes are: Biographies, Books/Film/Journals/Television, Democracy, Democratization, Education and Nonprofit Organizations, Elections, Government Operations and Institutions, Legal and Regulatory, Media Events, Media Outlets and Programs, Role of Media in Political Systems, News Media Coverage of Politics, Political Affairs, Theoretical Approaches,Types of Political Media, Political Attitudes, Political Campaigns, Political Events, Political Groups and Organizations, Political Issues, Political Journalism, Theoretical Concepts,
Women in Politics

Information Ethics and Security, edited by Marian Quigley (Information Science Reference, 2008). Includes over 150 contributors from 19 countries on topics such as computer crime, information warfare, privacy, surveillance, intellectual property, information ethics, and education; over 2000 article references.

Sage Handbook of Public Opinion Research, edited by Wolfgang Donsbach and Michael W. Traugott (Sage, 2008). Includes "The Public and Public Opinion in Political Theories" by Vincent Price, the opening article in Part I (History, Philosophy of Public Opinion and Public Opinion Research). Other sections: The Development of Public Opinion Research, Theories of Public Opinion and Change, Dynamics of Public Opinion, The Design of Surveys, Measurement of Public Opinion, The Status of Public Opinion Research, Uses and Effects of Public Opinion Research, Special Fields of Application . "The most comprehenisve book on public opinion research to date." --Robert Ting-Yiu Chung (WAPOR)

Historical Methods in the Social Sciences, edited by John A. Hall and Joseph M. Bryant (Sage, 2006). Four volume compendium of reprints of foundational articles and chapters on methods in historical sociology.

The Language of Advertising, edited by Guy Cook (Routledge: Major Themes in English Studies, 2008). A four-volume ‘mini library’ of some of the most seminal and controversial works on the language of advertising. Sections include advertising and society, cross cultural advertising, gender and sexuality, case studies of products and campaigns, multimodal forms of advertising, and brands and branding.

The Sage Handbook on Grounded Theory, edited byAntony Bryant and Kathy Charmaz (Sage, 2007). "Grounded Theory is by far the most widely used research method across a wide range of disciplines and subject areas, including social sciences, nursing and health care, medical sociology, information systems, psychology, and anthropology...gives a comprehensive overview of the theory and practice of Grounded Theory, taking into account the many attempts to revise and refine Glaser and Strauss original formulation and the debates that have followed." --publisher's website

Journalism, edited by Howard Tumber (Routledge, 2008). Another four-volume mini-library in the Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies Series, this one devoted to the social, political, cultural, and practical understanding of journalism. The volumes are designed to be a library reference of key theoretical, empirical, and historical writings on journalism derived from previously published journals and books. "Has Communication Explained Journalism" by Barbie Zelizer (first published in the Journal of Communication, 1993) appears in Volume II.

And two books by Howard Becker:

Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis (University of Chicago, 2007). Second edition of this classic, of sorts.

Telling About Society (University of Chicago, 2007). "...should carry a warning label: 'Do not start reading unless you're prepared to spend the next few hours having your horizons broadened and your understanding of social sciences deepened. Further, prepare to abandon any belief that insight and originality are incompatible with clarity, accessibility, and plain good writing." --Larry Gross, University of Southern California

January journal roundup

A few end of year 2007 special issues to point out:

The fourth issue of Social Semiotics (Volume 17, December 2007) is heavily devoted to Michael Jackson (Framing Michael Jackson: Celebrity on Trial) exploring "many questions about celebrity scandal, cultural performance and identity, intersecting with ideas about race, gender and sexuality," according to Jenny Kitzinger and Sujata Moorti in the issue's Introduction.

Communication Research and the Study of Surveillance is the topic of The Communication Review (Volume 10, Number 4, 2007), edited by Kelly Gates and Shoshana Magnet.

Paul J. Lavrakas edits Public Opinion Quarterly's (Volume 71, Number 5, 2007) special issue titled: Cell Phone Numbers and Telephone Surveying in the U.S. While the issue focuses on the use of cell phones in surveys, it leads off with a historical piece on two of the most influential researchers on survey methods with telephones, Warren Mitofsky and Joseph Waksberg.

The Journal of Mass Media Ethics, which explores questions of media morality, devotes a special issue (Volume 22, Number 7, 2007) to the question, "Who Is a Journalist?" Edited by Wendy Wyatt, the issue features an interesting article on the role of "fake news" (The Daily Show, The Colbert Report) in media criticism, among others.

And while not a theme issue, Comm history buffs should check out Critical Studies in Media Communication's (Volume 24, Number 5, 2007) Critical Forum which is devoted to Daniel Czitrom's Media and the American Mind with short pieces by Jack Lule, Sue Curry Jansen, David Park, Jefferson Pooley, and Peter Simonson, followed by a response to the contributors from Czitrom himself.